From all accounts the last rockcrawling drew something like 8,000 folks for the two days of competition.. Several business reported heavy patronage and our motels apparently had very good occupancy. Any activities that bring visitors to Jellico help our local economy.

I received e-mail dated June 29th from Sarah Chaney, Principal Broker, Vice President of Sales, Rarity Mountain. Sarah wrote: I'm sorry that I missed you when you came by to visit us. As you know, we have opened our sales office at Rarity Mountain and are open for business 7 days a week. Phone numbers and addresses are as follows: Rarity Mountain Realty, 106 Rarity Mountain Road, Jellico, Tennessee, 37762.. Phone 423-784-1651, Fax 423-784-1655 Toll Free 880-975-4452

We have hired Johna Reese from Duff as our office administrator/receptionist and Jonathan Wilson from Lafollette as our weekend receptionist. Our current sales staff includes myself, Sarah Chaney as Broker, and Ryan Spurgeon & David Chaney as Sales Consultants. We are extremely excited about this gorgeous property and the opportunity to be a part of making the dream a reality .

I am reprinting her correspondence for the benefit of our local residents and certainly for those around the country who read this column on the Internet and are searching for information concerning Rarity Mountain.. And I often get requests for such information.

Early voting for the August 3rd election will run through THIS Saturday, July 29th. Days/ hours are this week are: Monday thru Thursday 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM Friday 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM and SATURDAY 9:00 - 1:00 PM.. Note: Those desiring to vote in the ELECTION ON NOVEMBER 7TH INCLUDING OUR CITY ELECTION have until SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7TH to register..

Another reminder of the back to school schedule:
Campbell County will register students on Wednesday, August 9th with an abbreviated day. Meals will not be served. First full day of classes will be Thursday, August 10th..
Whitley County will register students and have a full day of classes on Tuesday, August 8th… (Incorrectly listed in my last edition as Tuesday, August 9th..) Meals will be served..
(Boston Elementary School will have its annual "Open House" on Friday, August 4th. Hours will be 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM.. Food will be available at no charge to visitors..)

The Church of God Mountain Assembly (CGMA) annual Assembly is now only a few days away - opening Monday, August 7th and running thru Friday, July 11th. And as I wrote last week, this is going to be a very, very special Assembly (100th Anniversary). As I also mentioned in that edition, if the CGMA is successful in getting all or most of its churches here from around this country and from numerous foreign countries - not even counting all of the local folks who will be attending - the crowd in attendance and the parade Friday may be something to behold..

(I may have to be Absent Without Leave from my school that Friday afternoon to witness the parade. That event will just be too much for me to miss. But one good thing about it, Larry Lambdin who along with numerous others have done that tremendous renovation and expansion of the Tabernacle prior to this Assembly, is on the Whitley County Board of Education and maybe he will be willing to go to bat for me if I am reported as AWOL..)

We will not have a tractor pull on Saturday, August 26th but the "Bluegrass Music Fest" is still a distinct possibility and we will definitely have the "tractor/engine show". Very popular local singer Bill Rigney who now appears all around our region has agreed to perform that evening as his contribution toward helping us to recognize all of the progress that we are making in our town and to add even more impetus to the project. Mark that date on your calendar.

Come to town that Saturday and Saturday evening to socialize, shop and have a good time!

Jellico High School Homecoming is not that far away (October 20-22) and some recent encounters and news concerning alumni members informed me of some of their successes..

It was great to see JHS graduate DANNY DOUGLAS who was in town a few days ago on military leave. As I wrote earlier, Danny is now a Command Sergeant Major, the highest enlisted rank in the U.S. Army.. He presently has the honor and awesome responsibility of serving as director of recruit training at Fort Benning, Georgia, "Home of the Infantry".

And I had the high honor of having Danny invite his old principal to Fort Benning for a special guided tour to be conducted by him personally.. He said that he will take me back to the areas such as Harmony Church and Sand Hill where many, many of us have trained and served down through the years.. That should be a real nostalgia trip and it is a trip that I certainly plan to make. I'm just awfully glad that these old bones won't have to go back through basic training while I am there. (At least I hope Danny won't order me back through basic. But I could use it!)

While on vacation, Jenny and I drove around a large area outside Eglin Air Force Base where PAUL HAWKINS just retired as Chief of Fire and Emergency Services at that huge air base that is so crucial to our country's security. As I wrote earlier, that is a position of great authority and with tremendous corresponding responsibility. And it was performed for several years by Jellico native Hawkins in a manner that brought him both national attention and appreciation.

The Jellico High School Alumni Association made a wise choice in selecting LISA BLUE for this year's Alumni Award. I very well remember Lisa's intelligence level that allowed her to graduate as Valedictorian of the Class of 1977 in only three years. After working with me at Jellico Elementary School for a period of several months after I was transferred to that school as principal, she attended the University of Tennessee, where she graduated with honors in engineering. Following graduation from UT, she joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and has since has risen to a top position in America's space program..

Little if anything now goes into space that does not require her involvement in some capacity.

And I am very proud of my daughter KASEE LASTER.. Kasee is now the Associate Director of Study Abroad at the University of Georgia that manages 96 programs in 55 foreign countries. With the international situation as it is at the present time and with crisis after crisis constantly developing all around the globe, that is a responsibility that her dad would not want to even attempt to take on..

Those are only four of the hundreds of JHS students - blue collar and professional alike - who have made - and are making -contributions locally, nationally, and internationally.. To put it in the words my grandmother always used when I was growing up, Jellico High students are "doing right well" for themselves..

And in that same light of old grads, I recently met and talked with an alumnus of the old Knoxville High School that closed around 1950.. Their alumni members are declining as the years take their toll and they too try to get together each year. Once one of the very top secondary schools in the country, KHS had a tremendous football program that produced some of the great University of Tennessee players of those former glory days for the Big Orange..

That KHS grad said that the one memory that stands out in his mind and the minds of other players of that time was the trip of their junior varsity here to play Jellico in 1938.. And he said that game is usually a topic of discussion when the few surviving involved players get together even until today. He did not say how the game come out but one would have to think that with over 1,400 students, it would have been hard for Jellico's small squad to compete.. However he did say that Jellico had some awfully tough guys...

He stated that Jellico insisted on playing the game in the evening. And he laughing emphasized that it was easy to understand why when the KHS team arrived at the playing site (probably where our current baseball fields are located.) According to him, the field had a half dozen or so wooden utility poles with one big screw-in type light bulb mounted on top of each. He said that his team could hardly see well enough to find the Blue Devil ball carriers while the Jellico boys were accustomed to practicing and playing there and could figuratively hide in the dark with their offensive plays. But as we both laughingly agreed, "You use whatever advantage you can get that is legal and fair!"

The lighting at our current football field did not appear to me last season to be as bright as it once was and I wonder if Coach Danny Oakes might have thought of using that strategy? I know that there have been times in the past when some former coaches (with the full support of their former principal) let the grass grow tall, wet down the field and performed a few other such completely legal and ethical antics in attempts to slow down teams with great speed.

Although most did not have an overall impact upon the outcome of the games, a very few gimmick plays did work well on rare occasions! Former coach Clyde Tiller and I still well recall the time when our field had such poor lighting that a guard eligible or some such extremely well designed and executed play, had our ball carrier well down field on his way to score before even the officials located him - let alone the opposing team's players. (Won the game for us too!) As General Douglas McArthur always insisted during his brilliant military career, "Never give up your advantage on the battlefield!" (I guess the same applies to the football field as well.)

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