Marion Harris, Linda Carter Christopher Carter are to one side with Tammy Tobler, Velvet Leonard, Douglas Owens and Kevin Burress to the other in a Photo taken by Allen Worrell.

  It would be noticeable to the readers of our work that this is the first time I have written anything about the fact that Rick Nester nominated me late last year and I was voted in by the Committee.

   Just last week Bryce Smoot broke the All-Time scoring record for Boys Basketball 🏀, a record that was held by Tee Jackson. Smoot is a hard working young man that I’ve had the privilege of getting to know ( and his Family) over the years. He is someone that has spent his entire life here and spent over half of his life waiting for his turn to wear the colors of our Community. Bryce is from here and as Allen Worrell wrote in his feature story, reached the pinnacle of a life long journey.

  I am honored 🙏 to have been recognized in the manner I was last night 🌙 and it meant a great deal to be surrounded by the people who were standing 🧍‍♂️next to me. Each one was there because of how much they mean to me.

  I made a point to try a say Thank You to everyone that played a role in the ceremony and it wasn’t I made it back out to Laurel Fork that I realized that I couldn’t remember if I had said Thank You to Kevin DeHaven so I did it with a text message.

  I understand that I’m not from here and while its year five for us, I’m never going to be from here. I accept that and move on with our mission. It’s fitting that the moments leading up to the Ceremony I was covering a Junior Varsity Basketball 🏀 game and as soon as it was over I went back into the Gym so I could cover the Varsity team for the Carroll News.

Speaking of which, its now 5: 14 am and that story still needs to be written so its a great time to get to work on it.

Thank you one more time to ANYONE who said Congratulations 👏 last night and everyone 👏 involved with the Ceremony !

There are few things in life that are more valuable than a quality conversation and I had that in spades ♠️ this afternoon down at Pizza Perfect.

Dr. Oliver McBride is going to be a large role in our upcoming Banquet and we used our 90 minutes to compare notes 📝 on our Agenda 📋.

Besides participating in the Town Hall conversation, Dr. McBride will be sharing his thoughts on Tammy Quesenberry, Dr Mark Burnette and Shannon Dalton.

  We are now just over one month away from March 2nd and I am excited about the opportunity to share the stage with so many people who I have Top Shelf respect for !

Had to pull into the parking lot of the Church ⛪ when I saw that the sign was once again being worked on.

The story of the process or better yet, the road traveled can wait ✋ until the day that the work vehicle has left the property but that its a tremendous tale of patience and obstacles.

Stephen Puckett is once again going to be a part of our Banquet as he is set to speak about Mrs. Tammy Quesenberry. I just hope that five weeks from today, the sign is fully acting as God’s beacon in our Laurel Fork sky.

Grant Reed sends the game to Overtime!

   First note 📝 – the miniature profile of Kris Richardson is only half done. If you enjoyed the read (Lin timed it at 15 minutes), I encourage you to check back in about a week as its a work in progress.

Eddie Robinson, who I met for the first time yesterday, shared some thoughts and Kevin Burress did the same. We are even going to give Kris a chance to take a pen 🖊 and share his thoughts. So far, he’s only questioning the comparison to Al Davis about Win at All Cost.

  Kindness leads to Kindness and then more Kindness. As I mentioned when typing my notes, Kris was not the only Hero yesterday. Plenty of people were at the other sites doing the exact same thing. Brandi Cochran Mitchell has plenty  of folks helping her with the AAU and I was hoping that someone would step up and share a story.

  Shane Reed had to be away from his team yesterday afternoon due to a Family Medical emergency. The best part of that part of the story is there’s now a clean bill of Health for the person involved.

  Shane was letting me know about two individuals who stepped up to Coach his team in his place. Travis Austin is the Man 👨that falls into the category of the Coolest person that I’ve worked with multiple times without ever meeting in person and Tee Jackson who I met for the first time yesterday.

Travis and Tee filled in for Shane, coaching the game which led into the video 📹 which appears at the top. Grant sinking the free throws that pushed the game into Overtime. If this story was on Social Media someone would feel the need to point out that they lost in OT but the story is not about who won the game.

  Shane went on to mention Kris and Brandi by name and added that he has coached some members of his team for years now. In the middle of a tough day some friends stepped up and some other friends send him a few videos of his younger Son being clutch in the moment.

  Thank You to Shane for sharing the kindness and what it meant to you!

  Thank You Travis & Tee and Thank You to the folks that sent along the videos.

Sometimes a person caring ❤ about others can be so uplifting to the person on the receiving end. We will address this on 3/2 in one of our tributes.

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Help Wanted :

Kevin Burress and I decided that our one Musical 🎼 number at the Banquet this year would be the two of us sitting our Wives in the center of a room full of people and serenade them with You are the Woman 👩by Rick Roberts & Firefall.

  Last year when we did Soul Man by the Blues Brothers it was designed to make people laugh out loud. This is not intended to make people laugh out loud but there’s no way we can avoid that.

See, while we will give it our best shot, neither of us can sing our way out of a paper bag 🎒. We will have my Son playing guitar 🎸 to help us sound better but there is little hope for us.

  The moment is designed to show people that its okay to shower 🚿 your Spouse with Love and Appreciation in a public forum. Chris Leonard has agreed to join us but is now questioning the value of knowing us ????

  When we approached Rick Nester about joining our group he declined. In my mind, his beautiful Bride 👰 Donna is sitting in the corner crying 😢 because her Man has stage freight.

  So, if you will, next time you see Rick. Say to him, I heard what you did to Donna…….

  We are going to work on Bill Gallimore and Marion Harris but only if they were to promise not to make us look bad.

That invitation goes to anyone else that will be there. The requirements are

1. Being Married
2. Having your wife be willing to stand across from you.
3. Love 💘 your Wife…….