Hello fellow Beavers,
We are all hoping that you’re staying safe and healthy. Here in Lake County things are relatively quiet at least for now. But with our board’s average age over 70 we are being very careful.
Our last meeting was March 9 just before things got really crazy and yet we all had our sanitizers and wipes and kept a degree of distance.
At that time, we hadn’t even considered that the schools would be closing and that everything was shutting down. So, we had our normal discussions about the Hall of Fame and the picnic. Now we will have to reconsider everything as circumstances dictate. We hadn’t even discussed our scholarships yet, but again who knows if we’ll even have a commencement ceremony. In all these things we will follow the dictates of the district and local and state authorities. We will definitely keep you informed as decisions are made.
One topic that is on our minds is the future of the Duck Race. As you know, that is our primary fundraiser. We run it in conjunction with the Harvey Alums and has been a roaring success over the years. But last year there was no Battle of Painesville. For those of you that hadn’t heard, the rivalry was “suspended” by mutual agreement since the game had become very non-competitive (we won 25 in a row) and it wasn’t benefiting either team. So, our ticket sales and sponsorships were way down. And there aren’t many of us still involved that can get in a chilly Grand River and chase the duckies to the finish line.
We of course need to continue a revenue stream to fund our scholarships. And we would like to keep some form of rivalry between us. So in between washing your hands and wiping everything down we’d like to hear your thoughts and ideas about how to continue whether it’s something new or modifications to the Duck Race that could work.
Now one of the things I’ve been doing to keep from going stir crazy is to come up with some silver linings and random thoughts. (By the way, I looked up the derivation of stir-crazy and it comes from 19th century England where “stir” was used as a term for prison. Somehow appropriate now). Of course, Gretchen Reed is the master of those things some of which you will see in the newsletters and on the web page. But I thought it might be fun to gather some of these from you as well. So here a some of mine:
- Saving on gas and putting fewer miles on my new car.
- Found some more distant but interesting relatives on Ancestry.
- Being more diligent about my exercise routine and sleeping better.
- Going to finally download all my old LP’s and relive their music.
- Getting lots of “Honey-do’s” done.
So, watch for more as things develop and give us your thoughts as noted above.
Best Regards,
Tom Trombley
RHS Alumni Association president
