Five years ago an opportunity presented itself to our Family 👪 and it was going to create a stream of Income that was not earmarked for anything or anyone.
The hope was to Answer what I believed to be God’s calling but it would require leaving our Island 🏝 home that sat between the United States 🇺🇸 and Canada 🇨🇦.
Looking to the area where both of my Parents were born and raised, the place was going to be located somewhere on US-58 between Cumberland Gap (Mom) and Buggs Island Lake (Dad).
I was going to have the financial side of anything I wanted to implement covered and having 30 years of experience in dealing with Schools, Administration and Sports, I liked my chances to succeed with just one uncontrollable – I needed to build a TEAM.
Carroll County was the choice and my lone connection was having eaten a few pizzas 🍕 at the Hillsville Pizza Inn over the years.
I had a list of 50 proven enhancements I was hoping to use to raise the bar on education in Carroll County.
For the purposes of this story, Chuck Thompson is the Game Warden in charge of a body of water. Error one was an absolute failure for me to grasp the size of said water. I thought I was trying to bring my ” Boat 🚢” to a nice fishing 🎣 hole when in actuality its the size of Lake Norman.
Why was that misstep such a massive one ? Because I was looking for a place that I could sit down with 10 influential people and we would hit the ground running!
I reached out to Hagen Giles out here at Olde Mill and I asked him how a person looking to make a difference should start laying a foundation? Hagen said that folks in Carroll County live and die with their High School sports.
The Book 📖 and Kris Richardson…
Finding a neighbor of mine, Kris Richardson was a great deal like myself, the two of us teamed up to create a book about what we both thought would accurately record the single greatest Sports achievement in the County.
Twelve months of work and right at $14,000.00 spent went into our efforts. The two of us could not have been any prouder but then something happened that left us both dumbfounded. It was never the intention to try and profit from the book or even get our money 💰 back, so it never about the number of copies out there, it was the complete lack of interest in it.
The upside to this part of the story is that through it all, Kris and I developed a friendship that I believe will last for a while.
The Book 📖 was designed to make sure folks knew that we were here and trying to find ways to build a team for the Boat. Because with a team, God can create a number of opportunities.
Getting back to Monday night and my appreciation for Chuck Thompson. Our efforts were set to end last year on November 3rd, when our resources expired. We felt good about our efforts, especially the partnership with Rick & Donna Nester. But if I couldn’t build a Boat Load of a team when I had a sizable bag of Money, it was a safe bet I couldn’t accomplish it after the fact.
After closing up shop, we headed out to St.George, Utah and was in the process of getting a new home 🏡. Then in a window of just a few days I received two pretty significant Phone Calls from Carroll County.
One call was from Chuck Thompson, informing me that I had been voted into the Carroll County High School Hall of Fame and the second call was telling me that Jeff Tobler had passed away.
Folks that aren’t fans of Softball wouldn’t be able to understand that Emma Leath is to Softball what Allyssa Ervin is to Basketball. Rick’s 2024-2025 team was going to take a step back with Emma and her fellow Senior Katherine Lindamood anyway but now they would have to try and move forward without as lovable of an individual as has been in Carroll County.
In regards to the Hall of Fame, I promise you that was never a goal or a wish list item for me, the way that it would be for someone like Brandi Cochran Mitchell or Adrienne Harris. People that lived their entire lives here and bleed the Schools colors.
Against my Doctors advice, we came back to show support for both Rick Nester and Tammy Tobler. The problem comes from the word CARE. There is no on and off switch to my life’s work and a great example took place just a few days ago.
I had hit the wall pretty hard around 1pm (29 daily pills 💊, mostly designed to force me to slow 🐌 down). I managed to get back to Laurel Fork and fell into bed.
I did one last look at my calendar and it showed that at 3:45 pm, Karmen Smith was doing her College signing in the Library. This doesn’t fall on my side of the partnership with Allen Worrell as he handles the Big Ticket items. I doubled check to make sure that Allen was good to go and found out he was on his way to his Mother’s Doctor appointment.
Some people could say that’s just not by concern today, but I don’t have that ability. It’s all about that four letter word, CARE ❤. Stayed awake, made it back to The Hill and sat in a room with a bunch of folks that absolutely love Karmen Smith! We create a story that read like a book because it included people that were more qualified than myself to speak on just how amazing this young Lady is.
I have no actual connection to the School or to The Carroll News or the Carroll County Special Olympics Basketball. This is an issue in regards to folks understanding where I fit in to the places.
My efforts in this part of Life’s journey will wrap up here shortly, after Coach Nester has his final game. There are no hard feelings about the five year effort and there are people who did eventually find their way onto the Boat.
The transparent view is this – I challenge someone to produce a single person here that asked me to help them and were turned away empty handed. The back side of that same fact is that in the same time frame, not one person approached me to see how they could assist me in moving forward.
As I mentioned a few months back when talking to Dr Samantha Reed, my goal was to create a team and through that, find ways to create unity. But in actuality what is happening is we are creating a divide instead. That was never my intention but it is the net result.
Afterwards, people who were in this with me will look for what went wrong and its IMPORTANT beyond understanding that I have nothing but Love 💘 and Respect for my Game Warden, Chuck Thompson!!!
It’s not his fault that his Pond is actually a Lake with 1,000 miles of shoreline !
Allen Worrell, Ron Cochran, Shannon Dalton were comfortable to get on the Boat 🚢 and for reasons past understanding, Kris Richardson stayed on the Boat and Cavalier Park was our favorite dock.
Final note 📝 ahead of tomorrow – Ethan Richardson and his four years of commitment to Carroll County High School 🏫, WOW 👏
P.S. – Vickey Ritchie and Tammy Quesenberry are legit !
A.S.P.N on The Hill 
Jerry, you have definitely made a difference…..especially to me!