The one thing that I didn’t want to be responsible for at our Banquet was who was in the room. We were trying to accomplish two things – honor Ben Tickle, Darrin Mathews, Arthur Campbell, Kris Richardson and Rick Nester.

The second agenda was to say Thank You to the following people: Ron Cochran, Kevin Burress, Marion Harris, Greg Talley, Shannon Dalton, Kevin DeHaven, Chris Carter, Kris Richardson, Rick Nester, Darrin Mathews, Allen Worrell and after the Maintenance Team did everything they did for us where the scoreboard was concerned we added a table for Stephen Puckett and friends. These folks were named Table Masters.

These 12 people were then given the choice to invite seven people to join them at their tables. What do those 12 folks have in common ? Each one of them went above and beyond to help us try and reach our goals over the past 12 months.

Once everyone had submitted their guest list and we had the promise of a full house 🏠, we asked ourselves could we create an area (Rick’s Bullpen is what we called it) where we could sneak a few more people in.

We set up two extra tables and 20 chairs 💺 to try and accommodate anyone that might want to join us but didn’t end up on anyones guest list.

On Friday morning 🌄 I was reading the list of names that had been submitted and realized that a few of Rick’s current players had made the list because of their parents being on the guest list.

At this point I reached out to Coach and said we can create space for any other players that wanted to attend, in hopes of guaranteeing nobody felt excluded from his current players.

In the month leading up to the Banquet I had one person who stopped and asked me if they could attend. That person was Miss Macie Adkins, who happened to be in town for the weekend. We were happy to squeeze her in to the table that Kevin Burress had as we did for Arizona Thompson.

This is the story of exactly who entered the doors 🚪 of Maples 🍁 Restaurant last Saturday night 🌙.

A final Thank You 🙏 to everyone that earned the title Table Master and Thank You 🙏 to Marion Harris and Trenton Miller for working on the live streaming 💙.

Thank You to the Staff of Linda Webb and to Hagen Giles for making things go as smoothly as possible.

Thank You to Principal Thompson for speaking on the behalf 🙏 of the four folks that we 🎖🎖🎖🎖 honored from Carroll County High School 🏫.

Thank You to Kris Richardson ❤ for being in the Co-Pilot seat 💺.

Thank You to my Wife of 39 years for always being by my side.

Thank you for the kind gift 🎁 presented to us at the end of the evening.

Thank You to Dr. Mark Burnette for his presence 🙏

Thank You to Ben Tickle, Darrin Mathews, Arthur Campbell, Kris Richardson and Rick Nester for being great examples !

Thank You to Russell Smoot, Greg Talley and Kevin Burress for the Blues Brothers sketch.

Thank you to Anthony Barnes, Ethan Richardson, Craig Worrell and Allen Worrell for their help in our display of Creative Writing ✍ 101.

Thank You Shannon Dalton for being so gracious with your time.

Thank You to everyone who made the commute down from Page County and back 🏡. It was above and beyond !

Finally, Thank You Ron Cochran !!

As the Great Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story !

The calm before the storm is one way to describe the start of the week for Carroll County High School Athletics.

No activities today but we will go hunting for Cougars tomorrow afternoon / evening !

We are hopeful that the fourth time will be the charm for both of our Tennis 🎾 programs as they have yet to play a match. Lost once to Wet, lost once to Wind and lost once to cold 🥶.

Cavalier Park will host a Softball double header with the JV opening up the show and Varsity following up.

Tommy Thompson Field will be hosting a Soccer ⚽️ Twin Bill as well as both the JV Boys 👦 and Varsity Boys will play at 🏡, on The Hill.

The battling Ben Tickles will take their show on the road as Girls Soccer ⚽️ plays up at Dublin. 6pm

Both of the Baseball ⚾️ teams are off the red hot starts and they will look to continue their excellent play against PCHS. Varsity hits the road for a 5pm start while JV stays home 🏡, also starting at 5pm.

Tennis 🎾 kicks everything off at 4:30 with the Boys 👦 staying on The Hill and the Girls 👧 traveling to Dublin.

It will be a busy, busy night 🌙 tomorrow but there will be plenty of opportunities to cheer Go Cavs !