Essex Hall of Fame (plus other events in the Neck)

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I returned to my old stomping grounds at Essex High School today to attend the EHS Athletic Hall of Fame 2nd Annual Induction at 1 pm. I had not attended this new and wonderful event before. It was a very impressive and well run event! Awesome printed program - Corey Beazley, I believe, and folks like Mrs. Amos, Mr. Whitaker & Holmes started this great and much needed community event. Bruce Thomas, the voice of the Trojans, was the announcer of the ceremony.

The inductees were GC "Chris" Rose, William Clarke (his fine son Will accepted), Alice Cooper, April Johnson, Andy Lankford, Andrew Hence, and Willie Mitchell.

Oh and the State Champion Tennis teams of 81, 82, & 83.

 

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I had to leave early to attend a great Eagle Scout ceremony (also in Tappahannock) for a Northumberland Football player, Blake Edwards. It was at 2 pm. Yes, the NHS game v Rapp was at three in Warsaw (game was supposed to be on Friday).

Blake Edwards is a Senior 1st year football player (but Baseball star). He is one of like 5 1st year seniors playing football this year.

As some of you may know, becoming an Eagle scout is a great honor. After about 40 min of a cool ceremony, Blake's (a 4.0 or higher student) speech was short but awesome - it went something like this.

"I want to thank God, my family, all my teachers and mentors, and all the people who have supported me all my life, I am so sorry to miss my own party and thanks for coming, but I gotta go play some football."

Everyone cheered!

 

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Back to the Essex HOF ceremony, one of the fine inductees was Chris Rose, who is the main editor and publisher and sports writer for the Rapp Times. Rose has won numerous awards over the years for covering high school sports since the early 80s.

The Neck and Middle Peninsula is very fortunate to have Rose cover almost all the sports.

One amazing stat I thought mentioned at the ceremony was Rose has covered over 5,000 NND sporting events (articles) and that number increases to 7,000 if you include his articles on the Tidewater sports teams.

One amusing note was Rose has been run over a few times during the games (not hurt) and some of his flips are on film!