Day: June 20, 2025

There were critters living under the porta potties before June of 2015 and look at her now ! The history of Cavalier Park is a Huge part of the story..

Tammy Quesenberry offered some great insight as to how things changed at our Cavalier Park after the Lady 👩 Cavaliers Softball team won 🏆the first State Championship in the history of Carroll County High School.

Throughout the story here, both Alan F Knight Field and Cavalier Park are front and center. The background stories are truly important here because they were also forty years in the making. Back in 1981 Alan Knight returned to his High School that he graduated 🎓 from five years earlier and all Coach inherited was a back stop.

The part of that side of the story is Page County High School captured the 1981 State Championship without the benefit of a home field! Cavalier Park was in place before June 13, 2015 but the start of the beautiful face-lift began shortly after.

Vickey Ritchie also contributed today with the sharing of a video from back then the day the town celebrated the landmark Championship.

Now, if anyone has documentation of the critters housing under the portable restrooms 🚻, that would be priceless!

The beauty of the Book 📖 to be titled ” Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend ” will include so many stories told by anyone who remembers the day back in June 2015!

Rocky Racoon

The link from Vickey Ritchie !

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1AwvyxR9FE/?mibextid=wwXIfr

http://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2025/06/no-raccoons-were-harmed-back-in-2015.html

Revisiting the on-going project to replace the dilapidated High Jump area at Carroll County High School – June 20th update…

Let’s start with the Great news for Shawn Montgomery, Jon Delp and Brenden Fariss ➕ all future Cavaliers Student Athletes thinking about being a High Jumper – we will be replacing the area !!

Thank You to the efforts from Tammy Quesenberry, Carroll County High School 🏫 and the Athletic Association for covering the first half of the cost of $15,000.00

Now to the second half – we are looking to now create $7,500.00, with each dollar 💵 running through Carroll County High School. At the end of our window of opportunity to participate with us, Mr Kevin DeHaven will let us know how much of our half is still due and he will then write ✍ that amount in on the check ✔ that I leave him on our way out of town next Friday afternoon.

  Rick and Donna Nester, Travis Osborne, Jon Delp, Crystal Clear Delivery, Craig Worrell, Kris Richardson and The Coconut 🥥 Telegraph are amongst the people to step 🚶‍♂️ up immediately.

The bartering aspect here involves Hagen Giles and Olde Mill Golf Resort ⛳ in Laurel Fork and the Carroll News and our efforts at OneofUs.Care.

Someone who writes ✍ a check for $100.00 to Carroll County High School will receive in return a round of Golf, including Cart, at Olde Mill Golf Resort.

Someone who writes ✍ a check for $150.00 receives the Golf ➕ a copy of the Basketball Book 📖 about the Back 2 Back State Championships.

Write ✍ one for $250.00 and you get the Golf, the Book 📖, a spot in the full page ad in the Newspaper 📰 and a permanent spot in the ongoing efforts.

Why would I choose to acknowledge that we will cover the gap, whatever the amount, ahead of time when it actually gives people a reason to not participate?

Transparency is a HUGE part of our process here. $7,500.00 is what remains available for us. Whatever is left can and will go to the next cause. We are comfortable either way. A sermon from a visiting Pastor one Sunday when I was a teenager, included a six term message :

Find a Need and Fill it. Fifty years later, it still means a great deal to me.

This High Jump area is a Need and it will be filled. The opportunity to get involved is out there for the taking.

Like any great tale, there are plenty of extras that played a part in June 13, 2015 with one of them being Mr Frank Comer of Shenandoah, Virginia.

The line up card is a big part of Softball at any level and back on June 13, 2015 both Alan Knight and Rick Nester filled one out and turned it into the home plate umpire at the pre-game meeting.

The difference between the two is that Coach Nester handed his over to Frank Comer of Page County. Comer is a life-long resident of Shenandoah, Virginia and has taught at Page County High School 🏫 for decades. Comer took up officiating along the way as a means of supplementing his income and like everything else he applied himself to, he excelled at it.

Comer and Knight have shared a workspace at PCHS since they started in the business of educating our youth back in the 1980’s and are still close friends today. Both still live in the same homes and work at the same school but back on our red letter date 📅 10 years ago, they were on different Softball diamonds 💎.

The fact that Comer is one of the few people that play crossover roles in this story ( Coach Knight and myself as well), isn’t above the fold News but what happened after the Lady Cavaliers captured their first State Championship in school history remains a part of the story 10 years later.

  Whether you are an umpire or a head coach or a sportswriter, once a ball game is over, you have various levels of notes 📝 to dispose of. Comer returned from Liberty University to Shenandoah with the Carroll County lineup card in his pocket.

Comer took the time to research how to get the momento back to CCHS and added a page long note with it. Just the fact that we have a hand written letter makes it an antique! The fact that Comer mentioned Coach Knight in the letter adds a layer to it as well.

On a personal note, I am a big fan of Frank Comer and when its time to work on his part in the story, I will go backwards to the early days on my sites and dig up stories about him as a Coach for Page County High as well.

There’s nothing earth shattering in it, no nuclear launch codes. Just one lifetime Coach and Official taking the time to acknowledge the efforts of another lifetime Coach.

The fact that it was available to me today, ten years later, should explain what it means to the receiver of said message. Just a random act of kindness can go a long way to someone else !!

There will be a bus load of people that will be part of this story, Frank Comer is just one of them. The story will contain 40 years of a relationship with the game of Softball, two High School coaches that are in their five decade of leadership with all of it taking place at just one school. Two facilities that we have played a role in upgrading over the years and plenty of remarkable young Ladies that have worn the uniforms for the Lady Cavaliers and the Lady Panthers.