Welcome 🙏 to the Volleyball 🏐 Player Profile team, Miss Kalee Bunn ! Part #1 of 2 as we look inside this Amazing 👏 journey !

Name – Kalee Madison Bunn

Hometown – Fancy Gap, Virginia

Height – 5 ‘ 11

Parents – Kristi & Greg Bunn

Class – Junior at Ferrum

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Assistant Coach Maleah Neely :

Kalee was a big part of our success when she came through. As a setter, she learned rotations and understood when to set certain hitters.

As she progressed, she began to see the court more and continued to make better and better decisions. While she is not the most athletically gifted volleyball player, she makes up for it by her knowledge of the game. We really impressed upon her the importance of understanding not only our rotations, but the rotations of the other team, and she has taken that with her to Ferrum.

She is positivity personified and will give her best in all aspects of her life from the volleyball court to the church pew. Kalee continues to impress me with her play at Ferrum and I’ve been so happy that she has been able to continue her career post high school.

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Head Coach Cindy Edwards :

What can you say about a traffic you lady who is what a great teammate should be . Always help coaching them on what she see on the court even if she’s not on the court. Is a player that every coach needs in their program she’s the programs best recruiter. Always encouraging Always bringing energy.

Love her for the young woman she’s turning out to be. When she graduated from Carroll, we weren’t sure she would go to a 4 year college she is such a family oriented person. Her family is very important to her, so for here, too, be graduating next year, and going into education is so special, and I couldn’t be prouder.

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Kalee Bunn :

I started playing Volleyball 🏐 when I was in the 3rd grade for the Carroll County Rec Department and ever since then I have been in Love with the game!

I’m so thankful 🙏 for the Sport and the people that have been there with me through it all. Volleyball has taught me a lot of life lessons and one of those is never give up because you can do hard things.

I really did not know that I was going to play Volleyball in College because I was always a homebody. My plan was to go to a Community College but all of that changed the night 🌙 that we played Magna Vista. The Ferrum Assistant Coach at the time came up to my Family 👪 and asked if I would be interested.

I am not going to lie, at first I was not going to pursue it until it hit me the night of my last Volleyball game at Carroll County that I might not touch a Volleyball again if I didn’t play in College.

So that’s how my journey began and I’m so thankful for the people that believed in me and pushed me to play collegiate Volleyball. I would not be where I’m at today if it wasn’t for my Family, Coaches and teammates.

I wanna give a special Shout Out to my Mom as she has been there every step of the way and never missed a game unless it was an Emergency. Without her, I don’t know where I would be right now.

The rest of my Family was there for me through it all and never left my side. I also wouldn’t be here without the most important person in my Life and that is Jesus Christ, my Savior.

He has guided me every step of my journey and if it wasn’t for Him, I wouldn’t even be here. My favorite verse that keeps me going is Proverbs 3:6 – “In All the Ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy Path”

So for all of the Athletes out there that want to give up because they think they are not good enough in College, I want them to keep pushing because you can do hard things and your dreams can come true.

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Still to Come : Mom 👩 and Dad 👨❤

App State Women’s Soccer ⚽️ until its time to start on Kalee Bunn’s Player Profile…

Final game of the regular season and Old Dominion University is in The Valley with second place on the line.

Free Hot Chocolate was available and it was fun to see how many fans were there fully dressed up in Halloween 🎃 costumes. It was equally fun to run 🏃‍♂️ across at least a half dozen people that will be working 💪 at our game tomorrow as well.

ODU is one of the four Colleges that my oldest Brother attended on his path to earning his two pieces of Educational Papers. It also gave us Ronnie Valentine and Nancy Lieberman way back when. Valentine, if memory serves me was one of the first NCAA Men’s Hoopsters to score in double figures in over 100 games.

The only goal of the first half came on a Penalty Kick for the Monarchs with just over 10 minutes remaining.

Halftime included a Halloween 🎃 costume contest between 3 finalists.

Risky Business, The Hunger Games and The Mandarin. The folks in the press box 📦 gave the nod to The Hunger Games but the cheering was fairly close.

ODU just added a late third goal to push their lead out to 3-1 with just over 1 minute remaining…

Time to get started on the Player Profile for Ferrum Junior Kalee Bunn.

For those not familiar with the profiles, they include a Family Photo, Personal Bio, Player thoughts, Mom Thoughts, Dad Thoughts, Coach Edwards thoughts and Assistant Coach Maleah Neely shares her thoughts. 7 items in All !

3-1 is your Final….

Final 24 hours in Boone, North Carolina ? For the season anyway…

Happy Halloween 🎃!

Safely made it to Boone and the game below is mine to announce tomorrow afternoon and the one on the left is an option to support the Mountaineers later this evening.

At this point in life, one shouldn’t ever assume that they will be around this time the following year. Age 61, going on 85, but with no regrets, this could very well be my final trip to Boone.

With that said, let’s take a look at just where the Appalachian State University Field Hockey 🏑 program fits in with OneofUs.Care ?

The three pillars that the Organization is based on is Kindness, Volunteering and Bartering. #2, Volunteering – if you have a Skill Set that can benefit others, you should lend it out every chance you get.

Technically, hanging out down here is tricky because at the end of the season I receive a small check 💰 that doesn’t cover the gasoline costs for driving down from Laurel Fork. But a check is a check, so I have to find a creative way to give it back to ASU.

The announcing position is not designed for someone who lives 2+ hours away, its clearly designed for someone local. One of the reasons why it was available to me a few years back is that the Sport has a heavy European 🇪🇺 flavor to it in regards to the roster. Between the Appalachian State team and the visitors one will have 10 to 15 names per day that will be a challenge to pronounce correctly.

Then there’s those two words (It’s Only) that tend to drive me nuts. While there would be a line around the block to announce ASU Football or Basketball 🏀, the other programs, not so much.

Our Head Coach, Emily Dinsmore, is finishing up her second season in the Top Spot and I feel that her passion for our team is every bit as 🔥 as every other Coach here on The Rock.

Sunday afternoon the team will travel up to fellow Sun Belt transplant team, James Madison University for a contest that will decide the M.A.C. regular season Championship.

The Sun Belt Conference doesn’t have enough teams to play in its own league, leaving the Schools that do play it to find a home each year.

First things First, tomorrow we will host Queens (Charlotte, NC) in our final Non-Conference match. Here’s hoping that the crowd at Dr. Jan C Watson field it amped up for the close out session.

Win or lose on Sunday, the team will head up to Ohio for the 3 Day conference Championship. May 7, 8 &9 are the dates and the team that takes the trophy 🏆 gets the automatic Bid to the NCAA Tournament.

It’s ” only Field Hockey 🏑” to some people but its certainly more to our Coach, her Staff, her team and to her Announcer. The team is locked 🔒 into the six team event in Ohio and will land either in the #1, #2 or #3 seed.

James Madison 6-0 in MAC

App State 6-1 in MAC

Miami of Ohio 6-1 in MAC

Kent State 4-2 in MAC

Now let’s see about the Halloween 🎃 Soccer ⚽️ game….

#NeverQuit

We’re well into Day 11 of F14 so let’s talk about the Sermon that a Christian ✝️ hangs on to !

The Sermon that reached the deepest part of my Soul came as a teenager 🙏 at Willott Road Baptist Church ⛪ in St.Peters, Missouri. The preacher that day was a guest speaker so I cannot remember his name half a Century later but I do still hold onto the Word Play he used to drive home his point. The point was that everyone can be an example to others, we just need to find it. He gave examples from six words down to just three words.

The one with three words became rather famous later – Just Do It. One of the most famous Advertising tag lines of all time (Nike).

The one that got me that day was the six word answer –

FIND A NEED AND FILL IT !

Powerful words to a misguided youngster back then and still at the forefront of a 61-year old Man. Pretty simple thought process….

When I was looking for a place to try and implement all of the Amazing things that I have seen implemented across the Country, one of the key ingredients was for the place to be small enough that it didn’t have the benefit of coverage from either a local TV station or a Daily newspaper 📰.

Carroll County, Virginia met both parts of that criteria. But not being on Social Media at the time we moved here, I simply didn’t know exactly how many people were filling the perceived voids.

Yesterday will be the example of a typical day. Leaving the House until back to the House was just over 8 hours. Writing ✍ the story was roughly 90 minutes ( Thank You 🙏 to Allen Worrell for running the story) so now we are closing in on 10 hours for one story that maybe 100 people will read.

Up top, I shared two posts on Facebook that pretty much summed up the evening and did so in great taste. Just not sure that spending 10 hours to try and create a story that will only appeal to the people who were all ready in the Gymnasium and a few more translates into Find a Need and Fill It.

The day was a wonderful experience from beginning to end, shortly before Midnight. Getting to see Kalee Bunn again and meeting Madison Stockner for the first time were both rather enjoyable.

Trying to capture what the Night 🌙 meant to Cindy Edwards was the task at hand ✋and I think that was accomplished. Speaking about effective Tag – lines, ours is Encouraging the World 🌎, One Person at a Time.

Living up to that is difficult when the said World 🌎 is spinning at such a fast rate. The night was long but it was Awesome and if you are one of the 100 readers of the story – God Bless You 🙏 for your time.

Getting ready to head down to Boone for the final time this season with one stop ✋ on the way. It’s time to drop off our $1,000.00 check ✔ for November at the High School for the Cavalier Kudos….

Find a Need and Fill It, the search for the next fork in the road begins on Monday morning 🌄!

Schwartz Hall at Ferrum became Lady 👩 Cavaliers East last night 🌙 as Madison Stockner and Kalee Bunn squared off on the Volleyball court !

Ferrum – Two of the three former Lady Cavaliers players currently playing College Volleyball found themselves in the same Gymnasium last night at Ferrum.

Madison Stockner (Eastern Mennonite University) and Kalee Bunn (Ferrum) first met back in the early days of Elementary School and have been building on their friendship for well over a decade now.

Head Coach Cindy Edwards brought 19 of her current Junior Varsity and Varsity players over on a School Bus and that was just the beginning of the Carroll County High School faithful that made the trek.

Junior Varsity Head Coach Jason Petty and Mama Petty were in the crowd as they had a total of five players between the programs that had played Travel Volleyball for their team.

Both the Stockner and Bunn parents were in attendance and Logan Stockner (Madison’s older Sister) all took in the five set match. Three sets of Parents of the current players also made the windy drive over to the Old Dominican Athletic Conference match.

It’s worth noting that Kayla Nester has a trio of banners she helped the Panthers hang on the Gymnasium wall when she was playing Basketball as Kayla Goins.

The unofficial count of supporters landed at 34 and the two Student Athletes enjoyed their time with everyone following the end of the 2 hour and 26 minute match.

Cordy Gardner (Judson) is the third former Lady 👩 Cavalier playing College Volleyball and Alyssa Ervin would be the fourth if not for her Basketball path.

Family 👪 was the theme of the evening and it created a very special atmosphere, from start to finish. Coach Edwards creates a bond with her players that carries on well past their playing days and Wednesday night presented an opportunity to celebrate with two of your recent success stories.

Stockner and Bunn are both crushing the Academics side of College in addition to playing a game that they grew up playing together. The future is very bright for both of these Lady Cavaliers.

In regards to the actual match, you would be hard pressed to find one anymore evenly played. Ferrum took the opening set 25-22 and EMU needed extras to answer in set two as the Royals fought off a set point to win 26-24.

Set #3 also went into overtime with EMU holding on for a thrilling 28-26 victory. At that point the overall score was 76-75 in favor of the Royals.

Ferrum forced a fifth and deciding game by taking the next set 25-18. The Panthers were helped out by their Student Section, which was full of Ferrum Wrestlers and Football players.

It was fitting that the fifth set was tied at 1,2,5,6,7,8,9 & 10. The home team then closed out the match by scoring the final six points, making a 10-9 deficit into a 15-10 victory.

115-104 in favor of Ferrum and 3-2 as well. But the takeaway from the evening was Carroll County Volleyball- The College Years!

Carroll County landed the #7 seed in this year’s Regional tournament and will open play Saturday at 3pm against the #10 seed, William Byrd. A victory will carry them to a quarter-final match next week at the #2 seed Christiansburg