Scoreboard in Rochester, New York during Timmy’s year of AAA Baseball.

  Everything that I am trying hard to accomplish is a very scaled down version of what I watch Tim Tebow do with his foundation. We are proud to be small part of the Tim Tebow Foundation and I could not make my way to Columbia, South Carolina fast enough to watch Tebow play a game for the Fire Flies.

The next time our paths crossed again was in Lexington, Kentucky when they were playing against the Lexington Legends. Anytime we were in a park at the same time as Tebow, there was such an energy in the air !

The Rumble Ponies were the AA stop ✋ for Tebow and his jersey from there is one of my prized  possessions, in regards to clothing.

Tebow had his best season at AA and was on his way to getting a September call 📞 up before an injury to his hand derailed his season.

The following year Tebow headed up to Syracuse and we found him on the road in Rochester. Syracuse would prove to be the final stop on the journey and the highlight of the night 🌙 was seeing Timmy remove my Strasburg Express hat off my Grandson’s head

Retracing the steps 🚶‍♂️during this process 🙏 will bring back such fond memories!

https://www.thecarrollnews.com/sports/new-scoreboard-a-labor-of-love/article_bc0f0a76-d273-11ee-a41d-5b12f15ad6e4.html

Everyone who was in Lynchburg on June 13th, 2015 knows that it was Hannah Dalton (Bourne) that was instructed by Coach Rick Nester to wonder off the base to create a rundown. A rundown that would lead to the only run in the Lady Cavaliers 1-0 victory over Woodgrove.

  Coach Nester was quick to talk about his initial reaction to meeting Dalton, a sophomore at the time who was hoping to make Varsity in 2013. The meeting took place during the off-season workouts ahead of Coach’s rookie season and Dalton had Nester at Hello 👋!

” Hannah is top class young Lady, one that makes everyone around her better,” said Nester. ” She is the type of person that you want on your team, a Coach is fortunate to have players of her caliber from time to time. Hannah made me a better coach.”

My first conversation with Hannah took place earlier tonight and trust me when I say that it came at a great time. We are looking forward to seeing which part of the 2015 journey means the most to her and after the endorsement from Nester, I am already looking forward to the next time we connect.

One of the four Seniors who led the way back in 2015, we are thrilled to welcome 🙏 Hannah Dalton Bourne to our story !

Every season of High School Softball has a game that is the Win and you’re In contest in regards to the State Tournament. The game takes place in the Regional Semi-finals and in 2015 for Carroll County, it had the Lady Cavaliers trying hard to make their way up to Fluvana County.

The record book 📖 shows us that Carroll County prevailed by a final score of 3-0 after the team scored one run for every day that they tried to play the game. It would be awkward enough to need three tries to get to play a regular season game, let alone the contest that would send the team on to the State Tournament.

There was a Community send-off on Day 1 and then another one on Day 2 before the weather forecast triggered a postponement. Finally, on the third attempt, the team made it up to Fluvana and history shows us that Sydney Nester pitched a shutout, the defense sparkled and there was enough timely hitting to carry the Lady Cavaliers onto the Final Four !

Modern day, that victory translates to the Elite Eight of State but back in the day it landed a team in the Final Four.

The twice delayed game pushed Carroll County High School into the need to head up to Woodgrove for the Regional Championship from Fluvana. The team jumped back on the Bus 🚌 and drove another 120 miles North.

  Third time was the Charm will be the subtitle for the game versus Fluvana and the first game against Woodgrove will be labeled – The Bait and Switch….

One cannot have a Softball program maintain a degree of excellence like has taken place at Page County High School over the past 40 years without a slew of folks that step up and accept the baton from the people before them.

Dennis Zimmerman is one of those people and just being in the vicinity of ” Preacher ” can raise a smile. The combination of energy and passion is the key to his disposition. Years after his daughter, Caroline,  graduated 🎓 (Class of 2019) with the third State Championship in 5 years, Dennis can still be found at Lady Panthers Softball games, keeping the scorebook.

Zimmerman was one of the main people who helped us in our Raise A Barn project at Page County High School Softball Complex. There are so, so many roles that Dennis has played over the past decade or so and we look forward to rehashing them all !

Christopher Andrew Carter is the fourth of our five Children and the just turned teenager was in the Co-Pilot seat 💺 for our eight Pacific Northwest baseball ⚾️ stadium 🏟 tour in eight days, back in the late 1990’s.

Short Season Class A Baseball, where it would turn out that legendary Joe Goddard began his professional career, was the setting for our ” Practice Run ” to our Around the Valley in 60 Days promotion.

Three teams in Oregon, three in Washington, one in Idaho and one in the Great White North of Canada 🇨🇦, the challenge was finding out the minimum amount of evenings it could take someone to visit all eight parks. Rubic cube type of puzzle to search out the quickest path to completing the Loop.

The Sports Editor of the nearby Everett Herald agreed to sit down with Christopher after the trek was done. Pretty big deal for a Middle School student. Math puzzles are fun and there needs to be a game being played in the park that day for it to count.

Yakima Bears 🐻 opened the loop and the Boise Hawks wrapped it up. The trip over to Boise was the only one that required a flight ✈️ (Southwest Airlines-$39.00). The shortest day was Lake Stevens to Everett (10 miles / 21 minutes) and Boise was what we call the ” Runner “.

This loop was a low budget one, that included returning each night but it created a memory for a lifetime between a Father and one of his three Sons. That  fact would come very handy when we were encouraging fans of the various Valley Baseball League to participate in our Around the Valley in 60 Days.

Here’s Christopher Carter on the left, alongside Mr Andrew Good of the Page County Parks Department at their fundraising event this past weekend.

The goal in everything we try to do is to find joy for others, never doing something just because we could. Spending time with your Children when they are young is a treasure so grab it while you can!

    We will have the highlights and the feature story that ran in the Herald.

Just for fun, here is the much younger Christopher