I have said more than a few times that the place in Carroll County that I feel most at Home in the Press Box at Cavalier Park.

On that same line of thinking, there’s no greater joy for me than being asked to assist our Resident Angel, Vickie Ritchie.

The five folks wearing Red are from Grayson County.

Sheriff Richard Vaughan brought along his Bride 👰, Son, Daughter and family 👪 friend Eddie. Mom did an amazing job performing the National Anthem to get everything underway!

The afternoon included four quarters of Basketball 🏀, a short range shooting contest and a 3-pointer contest and a tremendous amount of joy for everyone in the Gymnasium at Hillsville Elementary School 🏫.

Here, my Bride 👰 was displaying the 4th of July Head Gear Vickey provided everyone !

The entire Vaughan Family 👪 were so kind in both the giving of their time and energy from start to finish. They added so much joy to our group of ball players !

Our Non-profit is based on ones ability to volunteer 🙋‍♀️ your time whenever you can if it can benefit others. I do it everytime I type something up or announce a ball game or share a photo 📷 or two but assisting Vickey Ritchie is just a notch above everything else I do.

Watching 👀 someone give so much of themselves for the betterment of others is as Good as it Gets. The entire time Vickey is making it up as she goes and I just follow her around the Gymnasium and put a fun voice to it !

” Money ” Talley with his game face on early in the action 🎬. Brother and Sister with Vickey keeping a watchful eye 👁 on everything.

We never know when the next time that Vickey will reach out to us but if its at all possible we will be there for her and her Basketball 🏀 team !

Need to add a note 📝 of Thanks to Marion Harris for his willingness to delay our plans for the afternoon so we could make it to the Game !

Jabin Talley back in the early days.

Blacksburg – The jump between High School competition and College Sports in monumental, the equivalent of moving to the deep end of the Swimming 🏊‍♂️ pool. This past weekend Jabin Talley played in a Tournament up at Virginia Tech that included tennis players from D1 Schools across the region. Greg Talley took the time to pen 🖊 a heartfelt recap of what the experience meant to him.

” I’ve been asked before who is my favorite player in sports to watch .In basketball Pete Maravich was mesmerizing in his he could shoot and pass , in football , well that’s easy Jom Brown from my beloved Cleveland Browns was an easy answer, baseball was a little harder but Hammerin Hank Aaron came out on top , hockey was easy the great Gretzky by far , track and field Carl Lewis but then a new player became a clear choice.

Not only was he good at anything he tried , baseball :Starting at second base and leadoff hitter for the Dixie league champion crushers , starting guard for one the 5 best teams in school history and tennis all time # 1 seed player .

I could watch John McEnroe or Aggasi play all day . But whi came out on top of all these athletes . It’s a no brainer, watching my son Jabin Talley play any sport is the answer . So what was I thinking when I entered him in a high level tennis tournament this weekend .

I knew it would be hard to compete with players from UVA , JMU , players with 10 or better utr’s from all over the east coast and even China . As my favorite wrestler said to be the best you got to beat the best .

He didn’t win any of his matches (after winning his opener by a WD) but he didn’t back down either . He gave a good showing of just how good he can be . Yeah there is no doubt my favorite player to watch of all time is my son Jabin Talley .And the wonderful thing about him is he is ready to back play again . Awesome !!

Thank You Greg and keep getting after it Jabin !

There’s a report floating around that Scotland Yard went over budget in regards to security during the recent visit to the Country by Mr. & Mrs. Ben Tickle.

It turns out that when the Loch Ness monster heard about Ben Tickle being on her side of the Pond she reached out in hopes of having a Lunch Date with the couple.

The extra security was called in to help deal with potential photos 📷 being taken by the Tabloids. Nessy had a wonderful experience with the couple and even posed for some ever so rare photographs.

Nessy wasn’t the only Celebrity that read our feature on the Legend of Ben Tickle. Here are some of the others that might surprise you…..

Chuck Norris – I have Ben Tickle on speed dial. Any morning that I wake up and feel off center, I reach out to Ben and he gets me back on track!

Big Foot – The reason that so many people don’t believe in me is because I am constantly hiding from Mr. Tickle. Fear of Ben is what keeps me hiding deep in the woods.

While I’m not the A-List celebrity that the people listed above, I would like to add that even though Ben Tickle is six years younger than me, I want to be just like him when I grow up !

Nike exec Phil Knight is currently working on a new sneaker 👟 campaign along the lines of Be Like Mike, calling their new shoe ” Win Like Ben “

Nick Saban after retirement from Alabama said the following ” It’s all about Coaching for second place as long as Ben Tickle is still working the sidelines.

Going 12-4 for his Soccer ⚽️ Head Coaching career has Ben sitting at .750 for an All-Time mark.

Phil Jackson and Joe Gibbs are two of the All-Timers that remain on Ben’s call sheet as they look for Coaching Tips.

The Legend of Ben Tickle is growing and growing and I feel fortunate to get to watch it happen !

Here’s our first report from our Kevin Burress –

” The girls are in the batting cages getting warmed up. Not that any of us need any more heat, it’s currently 91 degrees, with a high of 95 and a heat index of 103 for today.”

So we have two objectives today, one is cheer on Carroll County and the other is prey that nobody needs Medical 🚑 treatment from the Heat.

We will continue to add to this post throughout the day. First Pitch is set for 1pm !

4pm update :

“We lost 11 to 5. We were leading 5 to 3 at one point of the game. We are on our way home now I will try to get some pics and do a better update this evening.”

Thank You Mr. Burress, Godspeed on your journey 🙏 home.