Monday January 30th, 2023

A great deal of life has taken place over the past four days, enough for atleast 10-12 stories! Some of the names that will be a part of those stories - Travis Knight, Marion Harris, Hagen Giles, Lawrence Nesselrodt and the Bluefield University Cross Country / Track and Field Team (or atleast a portion of it), Aaron Sorkin and Mike Yew. Some of those names will look famillar while others not so much but they all fit into the equation of the past four days. There are three blog / websites that are connected to OneofUs.Care. One of them is the site you are reading and for lack of better termonology I call this one "A Look Inside of My Brain". One of the sites is OneofUs.Care which is the offical site of the Non-Profit Organization that my wife and I founded last year. The second site is called the " Carroll County Sports Report", which is solely dedicated to providing a Positive point of view for all of the Sports teams here in Carroll County, Virginia. This blog acts as an Umbrella between the two sites and includes any thought process I have that doesn't fit inside the Non-Profit or the Sports Report. Tonight we had an absolute breakthrough with the Sports Report and that took place through the efforts of Mr. Marion Harris. Marion lives here in Carroll County and has two daughters that compete for the Cavaliers, one in Swiming and the younger one on the Girls JV Basketball team. Our paths crossed during the Volleyball season and both him and his wife have been more than gracious nudging me along as I learn my way around CCHS sports. Our Boys and Girls Varsity Swim teams were competing down I-81 in a town called Abingdon which sits just above the Virginia - Tennessee border. Very few people have heard my dream / plan for the Sports Report but Marion is as informed as anyone else. One of the key cogs in the plan involves participation from both Coaches and Parents because nobody has the capabilty of attending every sporting event played across the school year. There are simply too many teams and too many miles involved so any goal of expanding the plan will have to involve others. Tonight I was working on a Banquet we are hosting up in Page Countyin March when the noise on my Cellphone let me know I had received a text. The text was from Marion and it had a couple of pictures from the meet. Over the next two hours he sent me not only photos but each one came with a description of the swimmer and the results from that race. This act of kindness allowed me to create one of my running blogs on the Sports Report but this one was different because it happened with out me being in the building. https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blog/2023/01/30/thanks-to-marion-harris-we-can-be-live-from-the-swimming- pool-in-abingdon/ Anytime you start something from scratch you know its going to be an uphill battle and when you add that nobody within 100 miles of where you are starting it doesn't help. Lucky for me I am in it for the long haul and the future looks brighter thanks to Marion Harris.