Today’s Morning 🌄 Brew is about March(ing) x 3 as Vickey Ritchie and our Special Olympics Basketball march to Va Tech, Duke Women March 9 miles to a sold out Carmichael to face the Heels 👠 & Lin and I start the 31 hour March back to Laurel Fork !

Travis Osborne and his Bible Verse of the Day will appear here shortly.

Matthew 13:44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Have a Blessed Day 🙌

Two stories about things that are right in the World 🌎 as Vickey Ritchie is in the middle of a wacky weekend and Beth Bouldin brings up the fascinating 👏 story about Legos !

Thank You Beth Bouldin for bringing this to my attention! I remember the day a while back, that Allen Worrell was heading out of the office 🏢 and heading to the School 🏫 to work on a feature story.

It turns out that last night one of the local news stations took the time to create a piece on the local Kiddos and there teachers. Great news that a TV 📺 Station is still willing to do a human interest story and even better that involved young ones from The Hill !!!

Thank You Beth and Thank You 🙏 to the educators that made this possible ❤.

Congratulations 👏👏👏 to the Students who were featured and kudos to the dedication to your kraft !

Friday Night 🌙, Vickey Ritchie gathered up some of the Carroll County Special Olympics Basketball 🏀 players and headed up to the Men’s ODAC tournament where they played hoops during one of the breaks !

While up in the Star 🌟 City, they snuck by Sam’s to stock up on food and drinks for the Day long event being played Sunday at Virginia Tech.

Up the interstate, down the interstate, up the interstate, the wheels on the Bus 🚌 go round and round might be appropriate !

Sunday morning 🌄 at 7am is when the Team is set to leave The Hill for the journey to the Land of Hokies !

Maybe, Vickey can catch a Nap along the way!

The job of keeping the Love 💘 flowing for 3 hours each year at the Special Olympics Basketball 🏀 Classic is well worth the effort, even when it involves multiple Flights ✈️

The opportunity to work alongside Vickey Ritchie and her network of kind hearted souls ♥ that make up the Carroll County Special Olympics Basketball program is Priceless.

This past Sunday was the latest time and despite having to postpone the event twice and a less than desirable weather day outside, the Hillsville Elementary School Gym was full of Love and Electricity. From start to finish, roughly three hours worth of exactly what we hoped to accomplish 🙏.

Yes, Vickey Ritchie is the 🙎‍♀️ Face of the Day and I’m the voice, the amount of people it took to accomplish this is a long one.

Being that saying Thank You 🙏 is one of my favorite things to do, Why not give it a shot….

Thank You to the folks at Hillsville Elementary School 🏫 for their support in both the use of their facility but also for having some staff on hand to help guide people to the right place !

Thank You to everyone who participated in being ” The Crowd “. The trick to the day when you are holding the 🎤🎙🎤 is to constantly be reading the room to see just how much I had to do on my own versus what the crowd would bring ??? The crowd was AWESOME, from start to finish 👏

Thank You to our very own SRO Chris Mabry for absolutely crushing the National Anthem to get the day started for us 🇺🇸.

Thank You to Mr Ron Cochran, Ethan Richardson and CC Mitchell for being our three officials ! Can’t play Hoops without them.

Thank You to each and every person who played the role of Unified Partner during the 12 quarters of Basketball. Patrick Smith, DJ Delp and Dr David McPherson to name a few but there were many more. As Vickey says, the goal is to have the Partners blend in with the players and support them in a manner that is a MUST have for this to work.

Thank You to the trio of young Ladies that stepped up to help Coach the four teams !

While Velvet Leonard is the one that I have personally interacted with the most during my six years here, I would like to say Thank You to EVERYONE who took a Photo 📷 or a Video 📹 Sunday afternoon. Because so many people did this the flow of the 💘 has poured on for days and days.

Thank You to my 👰 if 41 years for both picking me up from the Airport, once I finally made it 🏡 and for her understanding of how important it was to try once again to be there for Vickey and her Athletes.

Thank You to those who invested their time in working the Snack tables, the game clock ⏰ and the scoring book 📖.

Thank You to the folks that helped Vickey both set up the Gymnasium and then put it back together afterwards.

Thank You to everyone able to park on the far side of the building to make it easier for those who needed the shorter walk 🚶‍♂️.

Thank You to Money 💰 Talley for the opportunity to stand by him as he soaked in the excitement of the day in a manner that resembled a Sponge 🧽 soaking up water 💧.

Thank God for Blessing me with a Skill Set 🙏 that allows me to do the things that I do as I March through Life trying hard to bring joy to others.

Finally, Thank You, Vickey Ritchie for entrusting me to be your Voice for everything you stand for !

The old saying that it takes a village is very true and the Village needs a strong, strong leader to guide the way. And in this case, our Leader has a Voice to assist her on her journey !