Mr Bill Gallimore checks in with his thoughts about last night at Tommy Thompson Field !

Great minds think alike is how I would file this one. During the volleyball 🏐 match last night, I shared a thought about just how hard our Kevin DeHaven was working 💪 yesterday. This morning, I woke ⏰️ up to this observation from the man that we write ✍️ for.

It’s one thing to move an event forward one day inside of a gym. It is a completely different experience in regard to a football stadium 🏟.

Yes, Mr. DeHaven had himself a day yesterday, and a few times, he even managed to sneak in a few minutes of watching 👀 his daughter, Clara, play a little volleyball !

The gym is open, and we will have JV volleyball within the hour, followed by varsity as Staunton River travels to The Hill on a Thursday night 🌙

We are closing in on our second and final scrimmage of the season, with the difference being that we will have a live microphone 🎤 throughout the evening.

Much more to follow !

The officials and the Golden Eagles are both in the house 🏠!

Staunton River 25, Lady Cavs 12 in set 1

25 – 12 in the second set, SR

We will now play a 3rd set to 15 [5:55]

6:27 – Wow, what a thrilling third set as SRHS edges our Lady Cavaliers 25-24.

Back and forth opening set ends with SRHS winning 25 – 22 [7:25]

Lady Cavaliers take the second set on a kill from Heidi Painter,  25 – 21 [7:55]

8:14 – Lady Cavaliers take set #3, 25 – 11!

8:38 – CCHS takes 4th set, 25 – 17

Due to the length of the drive 🚗 back, tonight we stop ✋️ after four sets [839]

Prayer circle 🔵 concludes the night at 8:40…

The biggest difference between announcing versus not is the ability to gather photos. My only hope is to have some sent my way.

Jon Delp is an excellent driver ( borrowed from Rain Man), and today, he is taking our four Cross Country teams down to Fisher River Park in Dodson, North Carolina !

Head Coach Shawn Montgomery is back for a seventh season at the helm of our cross country teams, and this year, he has volunteer assistant coach Mark Hamlett by his side.

The total number of runners 🏃‍♀️ this year is 20, with the breakdown being 9 on Varsity and 11 on the Middle School team.

Today, the team is without returning sophomore Will Dalton as the family is enjoying moving his big brother into college.

The meet today is the River Run Twilight Invitational with West Stokes High School being the host team.

One twist for today is an extra category of 2 mile runs on both the Boys 👦 and Girls 👧 side. The goal is. to help keep the event moving along from a time standpoint

19 student athletes, and we will swing back around to capture Will as soon as possible.

This season, when Coach sends me his times ⏲️ at the end of a meet, we can post 📫 a photo 📸 of the proud owner of said time !

Best of luck today to all 19 of our running Cavaliers !

Five things that Mr. DeHaven would like people to know about football 🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈

  1. The JV football game has been moved up from Friday night to Thursday night.
  2. The Varsity game has also been pushed forward 1 day
  3. The culprit is
Mother Nature

4. The cost to attend is $8.00

5. No passes are accepted for tonight as it is a fund raiser.

Whether you are heading to the Gym for Volleyball 🏐 or Tommy Thompson Field for football 🏈🏈🏈, it should be a great day to be a Cavalier !

Who is Paul D Camp, and why should it matter to residents of The Hill ?

Marion Harris and I share a first-hand knowledge of Mr Camp and his family, as does anyone else who has spent time in the area surrounding the town of Franklin, Virginia.

Philanthropist is a SAT word, and it is a label used for someone who is trying to take some of the money 💰 that they have made and put it to great use.

Paul D Camp made a great deal of money over the years and did more than his fair share to make a difference in the lives of others. One example is that he donated the land for a college near his home, and in 1970, Paul D Camp Community College opened its doors in Suffolk. The other branch sits in Franklin.

It’s a great story, but there is still no connection to The Hill, our community that sits almost five hours west of Suffolk. Both places share US-58 as their main source of travel, but now there will be a second connection as our Bryce Smoot is preparing to lace up his sneakers 👟 for the Hurricanes 🌀.

Smoot, the All-Time scoring leader in the history of Boys Basketball is preparing for a second run at playing at the next level and will do so in Suffolk, Virginia.

The team photo 📸 above is one of the cornerstones of the Anthony Barnes – Kris Richardson Era of Cavalier Hoops, and it is full of success stories, both on and off the court. I was very fortunate that Barnes gave me access to the group, beginning with Elijah Cox and running through the class that graduated 🎓 Isiah Easter and friends.

Cox, our 6’5 big man, became the first member of the group to sign a letter of intent to play college ball. The lovable Cox needed two stops ✋️ to find his home in Lynchburg and just completed his third season.

The fascinating thing about the Barnes – Richardson Era was the fact that they found success through playing the game as a team. They fought for each other and shared the basketball as well as they did their love for playing defense.

Davis Reitzel and Ethan Richardson were two examples of well-rounded student athletes who are both enjoying life on a college campus, but their basketball is limited to pick up games. Both are flourishing in life just the same.

Cody Reece ( Baseball ) , Brayden Smoot ( basketball ), and Jabin Talley (Tennis) each played under Barnes and spent time at the next level. Reece is currently a part of a red-hot CC Baseball program that just completed the most successful season in the schools history !

Bryce Smoot left The Hill as the number one scorer in fifty ➕️ years and played in the same era as his girls’ counterpart, Alyssa Ervin. Ervin is currently enjoying life down at Furman University in Travelers Rest, preparing for her junior season. It is worth noting 📝 that Ervin didn’t just sneak by Erin Gibson in breaking the record, and she has quite possibly taken the overall scoring mark for the school and locked 🔒 it into a vault.

This brings us back to Bryce Smoot and the challenge he faces, and the fact that this impressive young man simply refuses to give up.

While Cox stands at 6’5, let’s just say that Bryce doesn’t have that luxury. Fortunately for him, he plays with a great deal of heart ❤️ and has the endurance of the energizer bunny.

Easter turned out to be one of the most well-rounded athletes on The Hill, and he, too, is now enjoying college life with the focus on education.

The next portion of the basketball history is about to be written on the Boys’ side, and it is a great time to reflect on what transpired under the scowling but lovable Coach Barnes.

The program produced some top-shelf student athletes over the years, and as the college season is right around the corner, we have both Cox and Smoot to cheer on !