From early Saturday morning 🌄 until well into the evening on Sunday, Lin and I set out to see how many people we could lind a hand ✋ to as a number of people were set to have their Big Day inside of a rather small window.

Our Big Day is now less than two weeks away and we know how much it means to us so anything we can do to assist others is a no brainer in the world 🌎 we live in.

It’s now 4:30 on Monday morning and the electricity just went out again but thankfully it came back on! Very much over the weather!!

Heading into the weekend, we were supposed to be in Beckley, West Virginia with the College Baseball team we work with. Our Saturday double header was officially canceled in the wee hours so a window of opportunity presented itself.

The first step 🚶‍♂️ in the process was to create a story for Carroll County High School Wrestling Coach West Long. The piece previewed his Regional tournament later in the day at Staunton River High School.

Once that story was out there we headed to The Hill by way of Burger King for my breakfast and McDonald’s for Lin. Writing ✍ about how the Wrestlers had to do whatever it takes to make weight left me hungry.

The need to go to the School to gather information about the Scholastic Bowl was created by the fact that Mrs. Dalton was heading to Christiansburg for the Swimming 🏊‍♂️ Regional. Shannon does a terrific job getting me information on the Academic side of CCHS.

We headed into the High School just after 9am ( already over the amount of rain), not knowing what to expect or who to expect it from. We gathered all of the information that we could on the events of the day and then headed up to the Library to frame a day long story.

Once we were set we headed back out to the Car 🚗, knowing that Lin was hoping to accomplish three things during the day and I was hoping to add some Elijah Cox basketball 🏀 to mine.

Lin’s list included working 💪 out at a Gym, seeing Captain America and watching 👀 Duke play Stanford. She is about Duke Hoops in the same manner that I am about Duke Football.

Elijah Cox factors in because his Randolph team was playing in Danville on Saturday afternoon and Ferrum on Sunday afternoon. The school is in Lynchburg and these would be as close as he gets to Laurel Fork the rest of the year.

Feeling good about the setup for the Scholastic Bowl, we started the drive up to the Aquatic Center where the Swim meet was taking place.

Here’s the picture I took as we pulled into the parking lot.

The list of things I knew at this point were : I had Shannon Dalton inside the building and that Joi Ogle is quite possibly the most beloved Coach at Carroll County High School. The two of us almost shared a moment on Senior Night where I had the privilege of being the one to acknowledge her Senior swimmers. She was sitting next to me for a moment when Dr. Samantha Reed started to sing ( which she does really well) and both Coach and I joined her. Mrs Reed has that effect on people!

I had told Lin that the Swim team would have a great deal of success that day because they returned a great deal of folks from the past two seasons that ended in trips to the State Meet. Once I received the first text update from Shannon, we headed down the street to the Movie 🎥 theater and used our Regal passes to get tickets 🎟 to Captain America at 12:10.

What happened next probably made some of the folks around us scratch their heads. I took my rain soaked jacket off and covered my head with it so that I could copy and paste every update that Shannon and Mr. DeHaven were sending me. It was exciting to see 👀 just how many of our Student Athletes were having a Great Day !

  The movie 🎥 ends about the same time we finished Runner Up. We jump in the car 🚗 and head towards Roanoke. So over the pouring rain 🌧 and windshield wipers at this point !

During this stretch I reached out to our friend Allen Worrell and suggested to him that he might want to check out our site to see just how impressive of a day that Coach Ogle was having. Also, back on The Hill, the Scholastic Bowl team had won their first two matches!

Next stop ✋in make it up as you go Loop was a Hotel 🏨 in Roanoke. Stopped long enough for Lin to jump out and check in. She had 20 minutes to spare ahead of the 4pm tip down at Cameron and I quickly set out towards Staunton River High School. Amazingly it was on a short list of Schools in our State that I had never been to before Saturday.

I caught a break in that I passed a Little Caesars drive thru on the way because I didn’t want to lose anymore time. Standing water 💧 was on the Highway in spots as the rain 🌧 wouldn’t let up.

When I walked into the very crowded Gym of the two time State Champions ( I was not aware of this) I looked for a familiar face and found it in Louis Marshall. Louis is a pleasant young Man and we talked for a moment before he led me to Coach Long.

  I am not going to go into the Wrestling story itself because as I did with the Scholastic Bowl earlier, it will have its own story.

Before heading out I let West know that I needed to get back to Roanoke to where I had dropped Lin off. I knew that when the game ended she would realize that she was hungry.

Back at the Roanoke Airport Hotel, Lin was waiting with her workout bag 🎒 and it was off to Chick fil-A and Planet Fitness so Lin could complete her Hat Trick 👒 for the day. While she was in the Gym, I checked in on how Mr Cox had done in his game at Averrett. Holy Cow 🐄, what a game and it to will have its own story later.

As we were leaving the gym I realized that I was in trouble. The day had caught up with me all at once and the 10 minute drive back was a challenge.

Don’t remember much for the next bit as it was a coma like sleep that I feel into and would have been fine if I had been able to stay asleep 😴.

But on the way to the first trip to the bathroom ( Getting old is overated), I noticed that the light on my phone was blinking.

Our new Friend, Greg Bolen had sent me this photo 📷 that someone had posted on Facebook and a little message.

  Someone posted this picture on the Facebook page.

Spied a spectator, Captured in the crowd, Visualized on the visitors side, and lastly, Snapped in the stands. I had to share this with you Jerry. Have a great rest of your weekend. 👍🏻

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The rest of the night 🌙 was a battle to turn the brain 🧠 off and before you know it, its Sunday morning 🌄.

No biggie though, just going to write a story for Vickey Ritchie and the Special Olympics, take a nap and then head to Ferrum for Day 2 of trying to see Elijah Cox play hoops.

Zero mental energy 😴 left but then something unexpected happened.

One of the many, many health challenges I face (38 pills 💊 each day) is being diabetic. Seeing the hot 🔥 sign on a Krispy Kreme was not a good thing. The short term burst of energy is great but the crash and burn after is brutal.

The next thing you know we are at Virginia Tech. The plan being to go inside and say Hello as a show of support to one of the folks that we are going to be honoring at our Banquet, Vickey Ritchie.

Before I knew it, I was in a group hug with 10 of our Special Olympics Basketball players. One never knows the value of their own presence and while I spend a great deal of time around these young Men and Women, it wasn’t until that moment that I knew we had made the correct decision in ” stopping by”.

  The plan was to stay and watch the 10:00 game, take a nap and then make the 67 minute drive to Ferrum for the 2pm game and then on to the house.

  The amount of life that took place over the 7 or 8 hours we spent at VT will also get its own story

Had enough energy to drive to Fazollis in Dublin and then the carbs getting us the final 50 minutes back to Olde Mill.

  The night 🌙 that I received the Honor 🎖 of entering the Carroll County High School Hall of Fame, I had one rather large concern. I just spent two hours typing up one weekend’s worth of who I am, how could someone possibly do our efforts justice ⚖ in a brief statement??

  The focus was on the financial end of what we were trying to accomplish. It felt like I was hearing about Thurston Howell III has been resuced from Gilligan’s Island 🏝 and started throwing Gold Bricks at people.

Yes, it was a substantial amount of money 💰 involved but to sum it up I will use a similar scenario I faced last year when we invited Miss Ashlyn Newman to throw out a First Pitch at Cavalier Park.

Her Mother had given me what was quite possibly the most impressive High School list of accomplishments that I had ever seen. Thinking that if I read the list or even half of it, people would feel like it was too much. So I asked the overly impressive Young Lady 👩 a question 🤔

Please tell me one or two things that you are most proud of and would want folks to know about you and she answered in a manner that might have surprised her ever so proud Parents.

For me, its not the money at all, its the well over 50,000 hours that has been invested and 40,000 miles that have been driven.

A person can make more money 💰 but the older you get the more you realize just how valuable your time is !

Carroll County had a tremendous weekend and I did my very best to capture as much of it as I could but the reality is that just over 100 people read any of it.

This concludes with Patrick Mahomes and the recently completed Super Bowl 🏈. The Chiefs were down 34-0 and the QB did what he knew to do. He kept on playing Football as hard as he could until the final gun 🔫 sounded.

34-0 becomes 40-22, meaning he still lost the game but he lost it on his terms. I 💘 the efforts of the weekend, just wish more people had the time to appreciate the effort put out by so many of their neighbors.

Have yourself a Blessed Monday !