I am an unabashed, fanatical baseball purist. Most people like me, where loving baseball isn’t just rooting for your favorite team or being as fair-weather fan — it’s a family tradition written into our bloodlines. Baseball loyalty is a legacy passed on to family at kitchen tables, in Little League dugouts, and on front porches during late-inning heartbreaks.

Since 1967 nothing has epitomized my love of baseball more than following the Chicago Cubs.  As a young boy, while I was active in playing baseball in little leagues, and sandlot baseball, I didn’t really get emotionally charged with a team until 1967 when I was…. wait for it… A Boston Red Sox fan! 

My family was living in Middletown, Rhode Island, and like the rest of New England, I followed every game, every pitch, and every hit the Red Sox made right into the World Series as the American League Pennant winner.  I loved listening to my transistor radio to catch the games and follow along with every pitch. That was also the first year that my baseball hopes and dreams were crushed by none other than the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cardinals won in seven games, and it hurt! From that moment on I declared that the Cardinals would be my most hated team in baseball forevermore… and they have been!
In the Summer of 1968, my family moved to the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills, Illinois. The Red Sox were not the local favorite major league baseball team, but the Chicago Cubs were.  In fact, they garnered a large local and national fan based because of WGN television.  WGN broadcast the Cubs game on TV every day, every game. And they were all day games.  In the fall of my freshman year of high school, after just moving there weeks before, I had no friends.  But I did go home every day after school and catch most of the game. I watched Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Donnie Kessinger, and others play the game, and I listened to Jack Brickhouse describe the game in a way that made me feel like I was sitting on the dugout bench with them. I watched with even more enthusiasm than ever before.  I reasoned with myself; The Red Sox were in the American League and the Cubs were in the National League.  At that time the only time an American League team and a National League team played each other was in the World Series.  The chances of the Cubs and the Red Sox playing each other in the series was minimal at best, so I saw no conflict and decided to like them both. And besides that, the Cubs biggest rival was the hated St. Louis Cardinals! So yeah!  Go Cubs!
 
My grandfather, Fay Shaner was born in 1894 and saw the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in 1908. At 14 years of age, Fay Shaner was the same age as I was in 1968 when I became a fan of the same Chicago Cubs. He expected the Cubs to win it again every year for the rest of his life. They never did. He passed away in 1975 still thinking that the Cubs would win the next year.  I picked up the rallying cry, and every October said, “Wait ‘til next year!”
 
My father, Dave Shaner was my little league coach. He coached the boys of summer in different ways than just get up there and swing for the fences (there were none). He tried to explain the nuances of the game, to take a pitch when needed, to hit to the opposite field, hit behind the runner. My dad taught me to keep score with pencil and paper as he tried to tell me how cerebral baseball really is. He loved the Cubs too.
 
As the next generation of Cub fans were born, I simply would not accept my own sons NOT being Cubs fans. When they won, we all won. When the Cubs lost, we loved them harder — because loyalty is what baseball was built on. The rest of the world may chase dynasties; we cherish the bond that outlasts winning streaks and box scores.
 
As a professional storyteller and communicator, I have always been intrigued by how stories can transform ideas and bring people together.

As a culture that is designed to be family-centric, we pass on our family legacies by repeating stories of our youth, and events that used-to-be.
 
It wasn’t very long into balls and strikes - runs and wins, that I realized that the love of baseball often came in-between games and in unexpected ways.  When family and friends gather around and we start telling stories about our first game, or our last game we saw.  My personal life stories were often wrapped around my baseball game stories.  The stories, however, weren't always about the game itself.
 
Fenway Park
How many people can say their very first major league baseball game was between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox playing at Fenway Park? Not many, but my brother Dave and I can! I don’t remember much about the game, probably because I was not more than four or five years old.  Dave and I were tagging along with my dad and one of his Navy friends when we lived in Brunswick, Maine where he was stationed at the Brunswick Naval Air Station. 
 
I also don’t remember much about the game because apparently when something exciting happens everybody stands up, leaving a four-year old child to see nothing but the butts of the people standing in front of him! That was my view. As I recall the seats weren’t too bad. They were on the back row of a box seat section of the lower stands.  Just two rows behind me was a major walkway for attendees, and it was there I could see the hot dog vendors and the beloved ICE CREAM vendor coming my way! I didn’t really care who was playing or who was winning, I wanted the Ice Cream!  My Dad finally bought Dave and I what we were clamoring for.  When we wanted more, he said, “No,” but my dad’s friend bought us another cup.
 
Wrigley Field
Ten years or so later my father was transferred to the Glenview Naval Air Station outside of Chicago.  A few weeks after settling in my dad took my brother and I to a Chicago Cubs game. It was the second time in my life I attended a major league baseball game and this time it was at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

I love radio.  I love the live on-air broadcasting endorphin-like boost that radio gives me.  I love listening to radio because it’s so RIGHT NOW!  I love broadcasting on radio because of the intimacy of being alone, or one-on-one, in a room with a guest discussing and broadcasting the topics of the day yet having what could perceivably be the whole world listening!  And how could anyone not love being on the stage in the “theatre of the mind?”

Being a Mass Communications major graduating from Harding College in 1977 I wanted to  fulfill my desire to continue my campus radio station KHCA experience. I also wanted to use my entrepreneurial skills in advertising, and provide an audience with a program format that, to my knowledge wasn't ever available in the Little Rock market at that time.

My “big idea” was to have a live, Bible based, radio Q & A program.  That idea sort of percolated with me for a few years.  My thought was this new radio program format would fill a social and spiritual need from a non-partisan biblical perspective.
 
A few years earlier I had just left home for my adult years. I attended two Church of Christ colleges. York College in York, Nebraska, and Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas. Those institutions taught me Bible like I had never been taught before. Now as a recent graduate I was away from home, out of my Bible colleges, married, and on my own. 
 
I moved to North Little Rock, Arkansas to take a job in broadcasting, albeit not radio, but television news. A week later I walked into the Levy church, heard Leon Barnes teach a Bible class with thoughts and insights that I had never heard before.  Leon was somebody that helped me makes sense out of all I had been learning the past few years, but now he also showed me how to use that knowledge.
 
Leon also helped me find direction in my spiritual life. My previously youthful years was that of growing up in a church, with my mother being the guiding and spiritual life leader of our household of seven, (two parents and five children).
 
My advertising agency was just taking off but unfortunately it was still a non-profit organization, even though that wasn’t supposed to be that way. To supplement my income, I took part time preaching jobs at various congregations.  I would go home in the evenings thinking about how I could better monetize my skill set in a combination of ways in mass communications.
 
Unbelievably, at that time we did not own a television (our ‘s broke and I didn’t have the money to get it fixed). At night I spent a lot of my time remodeling an old home.  While doing so I listened to talk radio.
 
I listened to Bruce Williams, a then very popular and current radio program host. He was a common sense, financial advice guru that inspired me to want to produce some sort of live Radio Q & A program like he had.  Listening to Williams reminded me of my idea for a radio program that never left my mind. I learned a lot from listening to him heralding the concepts of common-sense financial advice, long before Dave Ramsey was ever clutching his money wallet in one hand and microphone in the other. I also listened to him because I was intrigued by his radio presence, his extemporaneous command of a conversation, and his amazing ability to listen to a problem, synthesize the situation, and immediately come back with an intelligent, and helpful solution. 
 
Even though I never met him, Bruce Williams inspired me to believe that I could blend all my professional and personal disciplines, of communication, Bible teaching, radio, advertising and entrepreneurship.  But I didn’t have all the expertise I needed to pull this off and be successful. I knew that if I wanted a LIVE, Bible-based, call in Q & A program, that I would need to recruit somebody to work with me that could command an audience and communicate at a “Bruce Williams level.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Williams_(talk_radio_host) 
 
The only person that I thought of that could speak extemporaneously that clearly and eloquently was the preacher at my new church, Leon Barnes.  I approached Leon with my idea.  I had to explain it several times and how everything would be produced and sold.  I’m sure he didn’t have a lot more band width to talk on another project, but I convinced him that I would do all the radio production and sales and all he had to do was show up, teach a short lesson, and ten take minutes of questions.  I don’t know if anything every came so natural to somebody as his teaching and communicating Biblical lessons. He said, “Yes,” and I got started with all the back-end work and negotiations that needed to be done.
 
Leon and I became good friends.  Even though he was only eight years older than me it seemed that his knowledge and maturity made me feel like I was a much younger man that needed a big-brother mentor type person to move forward in life. Over the next few years, we worked and served together in everything from preaching at small area churches, Toastmasters International, to our live, radio Bible question call-in program I had been dreaming about.
 
I wrote up a formal request for program on a radio station and headed off to pitch my idea.  I was going to go to as many radio stations as it took to get my show on the air.  The first station I went to, K-A-A-Y, made me an offer, although it was not the offer I was expecting. 
 
I was pitching a “I’ll do this… (we produce, and host the show), and you KAAY, sell the commercials for the show, from which we each draw our monthly share of the proceeds?  Whadda ya think?”
 
They laughed at me and said, “That’s not the way this works son! We own the radio station; you own the show.”
 
Then they came back with, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do for YOU, we’ll sell you and your friend a time slot on our radio station, and YOU sell, produce, and run the commercials during your show, and YOU keep ALL the sales proceeds!” 
 
Hmmm, I thought, they get their money regardless, and I do all the work?  Then I thought, “what if I don’t sell enough commercials to cover the cost of the show?” But it only took me a nano-second to respond, stuck out my handshake and said, “I accept that offer!”  When I walked out of there, I had a Sunday night, 30-minute program slot on K-A-A-Y, “The Mouth of the South,” “The Mighty 1090” and I was stoked!  But I also realized pretty quickly that I had a lot of work to do; selling commercial sponsorship, writing and producing the spots, as well as plan and produce a radio show that was going to air once a week, and the start date was the first of the next month!
 
The first Sunday of the next month, and every Sunday evening thereafter, I attended the 6:00 p.m. service at Levy Church of Christ where Leon was the preacher. After the worship service as over we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to the radio station for our live broadcast. 

The radio show was called, Searching for a Better Way. It was intended to be a non-denominational, Bible based call in question-and-answer program, with no direct connection to any group or church… just open the Bible and let’s talk. After a produced open I would announce “Live from K-Double – A – Y,” and then introduced a selected topic, let Leon teach about the topic for a few minutes, take a commercial break, and come back to live questions coming from the listening audience. The topics were pre-selected and prepared, but the questions and answers were organic.
 
It was a cutting-edge idea, one that had not been tried before, at least as far as I knew.  I did know that it was the first program of this type in the Little Rock market. The fact is, we had very few comments each week and some weeks we were filing the gap by ourselves.  But it was being broadcast, and we heard from many throughout the week they were listening. We did that for about three years, from early 1982-until sometime in late 1984.
 
By 1985 we were both moving on with our lives and went different directions, in ministry and locations. I moved to Clarksville, Ark., where I accepted a job as the Director of Public Relations for the University of the Ozarks.  A few years later I was on my way to my hometown area, Chicago, to take on a marketing sales position that was more aligned with my college degree training. I also continued to preach at small churches who needed fill in preaching from time-to-time, (where I often, by the way, used Leon's sermon notes to preach).  Leon moved on to a large church in the Memphis area and then back to Central Arkansas a few years later.
 
I didn’t see much of Leon for many years, but one of my favorite memories of Leon was when my family was traveling from Chicago to central Arkansas to visit family, when we stopped in Memphis to hear him preach at a Germantown, Tenn. church.  We met up with him and his wife Linda before service and exchanged warm greeting and hugs all around.  I naturally wanted to know what he was planning to preach about that morning so I asked him. It was a pretty routine question and answer, until he got up to preach and he spoke on something totality different that what he had told me.  I was a bit confused but settled back and heard my old friend give his vintage style sermon.
 
On the way out we needed to hit the road, but I was anxious to ask him about the different topic.  He explained by saying, “Yeah, I had planned to speak on that, but the young boy assigned to read the scripture, (probably 10 or 11 years old), read the wrong passage.  I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I just preached on the scripture that he read.  I was still in awe that somebody could do that so effortlessly. I also admired him for doing that as much as not wanting to embarrass the young  scripture reader!
 
I always loved and admired the way he mentored me to be a better servant and student of God’s word. His influence has always led me in every part of my life.
 
In 2022, 45 years later from when we first met, Donna and I made our way to the church in Lonoke, Ark. to hear him teach and preach, have lunch with him and his wife Linda, and simply catch up! We ate together, laughed together, and hugged each other like it was 1977!
 
Everybody should have a mentor like I’ve had in Leon. I have been so blessed.

-30-

The nearest ER was fifteen miles away in the small town of Gloversville, NY.  Donna searched Google and found driving directions to a very small hospital. While driving me there she repeatedly and calmly asked me to describe my symptoms. When we arrived she dropped me at the Nathan Littauer Hospital Emergency Room door where I walked in and told the admissions desk that I thought I was having a heart attack! The ER CREW MOVED QUICKLY to say the least.
 
After parking the car Donna came in and found me. She held my hand to let me know she was there. She knew all the right questions. She already knew all the right answers, but I think she asked so I could hear it directly from the medical staff.
 
After getting me stable, the hospital staff informed us that they needed to transfer me to a hospital about 30 miles away in Saratoga Springs that had an extensive Cardiac Care Unit.  The Nathan Littauer staff took good care of me, but sent me off in a transfer ambulance wishing me well.
 
After a day and night with lots of testing, poking, EKG's, chest X-Ray's, CT scans, and blood extraction it was determined that yes, I had a heart attack caused by three blocked arteries to the heart.
 
Saturday the Saratoga Hospital Cardiology team performed a Cardiac Cath procedure on me. All went well. I had two arteries cleared out and one stent implanted with an Angioplasty procedure. The doctors believe that everything went very well, just like it was supposed to.
 
As always, my nurses were amazing, professional and caring.
 
The hospital released me Sunday afternoon but suggested I not return home, (stay in the area) until Tuesday, in the event that I needed to come back.
 
We flew out of Albany in the morning of October 8, to return home to return to Ringgold, GA. I already feel better! God is good!
 
Many have asked, “How’s Donna doing?"
 
Throughout the entire cardiac event Donna was always... well she was Donna. She was cool, calm and decisive. She may have been nervous or scared on the inside, but she never showed it. She did exactly what was needed to be done at the moment and she did it with precision, accuracy, determination and purpose.
 
How’s Donna?
My wife is an absolute Rock Star!  I know for certain that I would not be alive today without her heroic and decisive action. We've been married for 49 years and I know very clearly why God chose her for me!
 
Upon my discharge we sat in a hotel room near the Albany airport watching the baseball playoffs. I wondered what belated Birthday gift I could possibly get her to make up for our unexpected adventure? When I asked Donna what that might be, she simply smiled and with a twinkle in her eye said, "Oh, you owe me big-time Mister, and I mean BIG-TIME!

Part 2: Four days after my heart attack, I had another one!  Yes, you read that correctly. I had one on Oct. 4th and then, another one four days later on October 8th.

On each of these events I ended up in a different hospital and received a stent inserted to clear blockages the day after arriving at that hospital. The first one was when we were out of town while on vacation (in Saratoga Springs, NY) and the second just two hours after I arrived back at our home. This time, instead of driving me, Donna quickly called 911 and an ambulance was at my doorstep in about 10-minutes. I was transferred to a major trauma center, Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. By the grace of God and an amazing team of emergency care providers, excellent nurses and other ER technicians, I am now at home recovering - again.

Now five days after my second stent I feel fine. Even great. But, according to my Chief Medical Officer, Donna, I don't need all the stimulation and excitement I get from being around so many people, so I am confined to watching sports on TV. Good thing the Chicago Cubs aren’t in the playoffs or my heart rate would be really tested. And, I think my diet and exercise regiment is about to change dramatically.

Since the second stent and discharge I’ve had a lot of rest (as directed to do so by the Dr.’s), I’m still going to take it easy for a couple of weeks. I have an appt. with my PCP tomorrow/Tuesday, and my Cardiologist on Thursday, so I should get some more answers about my activity and medication going forward. Next Wednesday I begin three days per week of Cardiac Rehabilitation.

I am well aware of what could have occurred - and I was at peace with that. But, at the same time I wasn’t ready to leave my wife, family, friends, church family, and so many that I love so dearly here. I also never wavered in believing, that God was not through with me yet, and that HE still has big and amazing plans for me.
###

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

1. Legacy and Continuity: Sharing your life stories with your children helps create a sense of continuity and legacy. It allows them to understand their roots, where they come from, and the history of their family. This can foster a deeper connection to their ancestors and a sense of belonging to a larger spiritual lineage.
2. Transmitting Values: Through your stories, you can convey the values and moral principles that have guided your life. This can help instill these values in your children, promoting a sense of spirituality and ethical understanding. They can learn from your experiences and choices, which may influence their own moral compass.
3. Spiritual Growth: Sharing your life experiences, especially those related to spiritual or transformative moments, can inspire your children to explore their own spiritual journey. Your stories can serve as a source of guidance and encouragement for them as they navigate their own beliefs and experiences.
4. Connection and Bonding: Storytelling can be a powerful way to connect with your children on a deep emotional and spiritual level. It can create a sense of intimacy and trust within the family. When you share personal stories, you're not just conveying information but also expressing vulnerability and authenticity, which can enhance the spiritual connection.
5. Coping and Resilience: Life stories often include tales of overcoming challenges and adversity. Sharing these stories with your children can help them develop resilience and a spiritual perspective on dealing with difficulties. It can teach them that challenges are opportunities for growth and transformation.
6. Cultural and Religious Heritage: If your life stories are intertwined with cultural or religious traditions, sharing them can help your children better understand and appreciate their heritage. This can deepen their connection to their cultural or spiritual roots and provide a sense of identity and belonging.
7. Gratitude and Mindfulness: Reflecting on your life and sharing stories with your children can promote gratitude and mindfulness. It encourages you and your children to appreciate the experiences, people, and moments that have shaped your lives. Gratitude is often considered a spiritual practice that can lead to a more fulfilling life.
8. Empathy and Compassion: Listening to your life stories can help your children develop empathy and compassion. They can gain insights into the human condition, the struggles and joys of others, and the interconnectedness of all beings, which are important aspects of many spiritual traditions.

In summary, sharing your life stories with your children can be a deeply spiritual practice that nurtures their growth, values, and connection to their family, culture, and the broader human experience. It provides an opportunity for meaningful bonding and the transmission of spiritual wisdom from one generation to the next.

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

David Underwood was a man that I came to affectionately call PopPop, even though he was a couple years younger than me. David was a development director at Harding University for the last 25 years.  Recently, at the age of 68 he suddenly passed away.

My first memory of David Underwood was in May of 2008 while attending the Pepperdine Bible Lectureships. Pepperdine University in Malibu, California was one of David Underwood's favorite places, (after Harding of course).

He was hosting, as he did every year, the Harding Alumni reception for the lectureship participants.  When I walked in the room, he seemed to recognize me immediately!  He stretched his shaking hand out, we exchanged names, and said, yeah, “I remember you. We were at Harding together in the mid-seventies. But I had no recollection of him.  That has very rarely happened to me before, because it was always me who remembered them, and they had no recollection of me, not the other way around as was this experience.
 
Coincidentally, my employment contract from Harding had been received, signed and sent back literally the day before. I proudly told him, that come August, I would be a Harding faculty member and would be moving to Searcy. He was so delighted and he shook my hand even harder and said, “Welcome to the family.”
 
A week or so after I arrived to campus and moved into my new office, David came by to welcome me to the Harding family. To say that I was surprised would be an understatement!  After a few minutes of stand-up greetings and chit-chat, a wonderful friendship began.
 
There were so many times we simple passed each other walking across campus where we had a 5–10-minute conversation while standing in the middle of the sidewalk. I think David and I were a lot alike. We were both outgoing, happy, friendly and a consummate lover of God, our families, and sports, (especially Alabama football and the Bisons). Except, I am NOT an Alabama sports fan.

Our mutual admiration went on for a few years, (maybe four or five years), when we discovered that both of our grandfather names was “PopPop.”  I happened to be wearing a gift (from one of my grandchildren), a T-Shirt to my Bootcamp exercise class, that said, “PopPop: “The Man, The MYTH, The LEGEND! One of my Bootcamp Buddy’s, Liz Underwood, inquired about what that was all about.  I explained that it was my grandfather-name. Oh, that’s my father-in-law’s grandfather name.  Do you know David Underwood? 

“Yes! I know David Underwood, but I didn’t know you were his daughter-in-law and I didn’t know his grandfather name was PopPop! I couldn’t wait to see him again.  When I did, I simply said, “Hello PopPop!” He had a surprised and inquisitive look on his face! Then, I told him that MY grandfather name was PopPop!  His eyes got big, a huge smile came across his face, and he reached out and hugged me! After that we never called each other by our given names again. It was always, “Hey PopPop!” “PopPop how are you?” See ya later PopPop.” “Okay PopPop!  He called me PopPop #1 because my grandchildren were older than his, and I had been a PopPop longer than him. But, I assured him that all PopPops were by nature cool, but that he was my favorite PopPop!
 
In the fall of 2018, my admiration and gratitude for David Underwood’s presence in my life was escalated when I asked Steve Lake, a senior development officer for Harding University, about securing some little-known scholarship opportunities for some of my Agape Asia Chinese students that were currently attending Harding.  I had tried a few phone calls and visits to various staff members only to be told that the international students were not eligible for scholarships and such. Lake directed me to go see David Underwood to see if he could help me through this quagmire. After meeting with David and telling him the story of Hope, Grace, and Josie, he was moved by the Agape Asia story and my plea. With tears in his eyes, David said, “They need and deserve our help, and I’m going to help you find some funds.”

Over the next few days he walked me to several different administrators including the Harding University President, the VP of development, donors, and Dan Campbell one of the other senior development officers to hear my story again. In the end we received contributions in the form of scholarships, grants and other donations that over the next three years equaled approximately $100,000.00 that resulted directly from the work of David and Dan.
 
Over the next three years David Underwood and Dan Campbell made sure the Agape Asia students were getting the funds they were supposed to and checking in with me to see how they were doing.  They were both were the consummate fund-raising professionals, and the most  caring, loving mentors I could have, and it did not go unnoticed by me.

David’s death is devastating to his family, the Harding family, and a crushing blow to the friendship that he and I had developed. He loved raising money for the students that needed it to stay enrolled at Harding University, and he loved everybody that knew him!
 
I may be PopPop to four beautiful grandchildren, but David Underwood will always be my favorite PopPop.

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

With that said, to my knowledge, while the advertising major may not be off the books, it is all but dead, with ZERO students left majoring in advertising (that I know of).  The following answers and comments may refer directly back to your question about replacing the advertising professor, or they may be directed to the demise of the advertising program itself. I think they work hand in hand to the same end result.

When I retired in May of 2020 there had been a year or more of major cash-shortages, and a several year pattern of shrinking enrollment at the university level, but the Comm Dept had actually increased our student numbers. Even before the catastrophic event we called a pandemic, there were bound to be corrections in staff and salaries at the HU campus.  I gave the Communication Department a full 12-month notice of my impending departure, but to my knowledge, nothing was done to replace me until the summer of 2020, after I was gone. Why?  My best guess was finances! At least that’s what I like to think, instead of the thought that they didn’t need me anymore.
 
I do vividly remember that each college was directed by management to reduce their faculty line by two. As the advertising professor I was an easy mark.  I had already announced my retirement – that was ONE! I don’t have any knowledge of who was the second professor to fall on their sword or to be cut, but a sigh of relief was heard throughout the land when everybody realized they were NOT the one to be let go.

While there were some inquiry’s about who could take my position it was all speculation until a hiring freeze was scheduled to be lifted.  I do recall suggesting a few potential replacements, but those suggestions were met with, “They don’t have a Ph.D.”  To which I said, “Well, good luck with that!” Ph.D.’s in advertising is a very rare find, and a Ph.D. candidate that was a member of a Church of Christ was even harder to find, much less PAY a fair salary in the current environment.

In the middle of March 2020 everything shut down for the pandemic.  This did not endear any kind of search to have a smooth transition of a new professor of advertising. I know that everybody was just in panic mode, and filling this position was put on the back burner.  In fact, I was asked if I would stay on for the Fall of 20 and teach as an adjunct remotely from my home here in Ringgold, Georgia? I thought about it for a nano-second and kindly said no… it was time for me to move on. I had a retirement position that I had agreed to, and was anxious to get started as the President of Agape Asia Foundation. www.agapeasia.org.

Then, less than six months later, in the midst of the Pandemic, there was a Presidential resignation/retirement/firing (you choose) and everything was put on hold - for everything!

Also interesting to this event is that two years before I left Harding, In the summer of ’18, I received a phone call from a dean across campus telling me he had received permission from my department chair to inquire about me moving to COBA as a marketing teacher!  I was stunned. Did this mean that the Comm Dept. didn’t want me?  I honestly didn’t know.  But I did know that we had recently taken a teacher from the English department one from the business department was already on their way to our department, so maybe this was just standard protocol to get all classes collectively covered by Harding University.
 
The primary reason I turned it down was that I already knew when I was planning on retiring, but I had not disclosed that to anybody yet.And, if I executed my retirement as planned, I would be giving a one-year notice just one year later. I didn’t want to do that to any of the current marketing professors or management. It just didn’t feel right to do so. I just kindly thanked the Dean and said, “Thanks, but no thanks.” The more I thought about it, it sounded like two major league teams making a trade; “I’ll give you Steve Shaner for a player to be named later!” haha
 
I also realized that when I did leave in two years that I had every reason to believe that the next advertising teacher was the business department transfer.And, that was a perfect replacement in my mind! I also knew that they were an IMC person at heart!So YES, I was actually THRILLED about that and never really expected to be replaced otherwise.

A couple of years before I left the Comm Dept, there had been lots of rumblings of the new IMC major.  A move that I whole-heartedly supported.  In fact, I had made the suggestion almost 10-years previous to it coming to fruition. You may remember that I have my Master’s degree in IMC from Roosevelt University in Chicago and was adjunctly teaching in in their IMC Master’s degree program when I got an unsolicited call from Harding and Mike James to come teach advertising at HU. Upon my arrival and getting my feet wet and finding my way to the bathrooms and cafeteria’s I started suggesting that IMC was the new Advertising. I was met with a big, “What’s that?” from a few older, longer tenured teachers and professors than me. I suggested that the Adv. and PR majors be rolled into one and be called IMC. When I pressed-on, I was simply told, “No, not now, not ever!”
 
A couple of years later I discovered that as the director of the advertising program that I could make changes to the advertising required classes.  Every year I proceeded to make subtle changes to the Advertising curriculum to look more like an IMC curriculum.

The IMC curriculum that was in place when I left looked great with one glaring omission--- in addition to students being required to take Principles of Marketing, a student had to choose to take Public Relation Principles OR Introduction to Advertising, but not both. It was at that time that I knew that the advertising major was on life-support.  Having the choice, when there was nobody in place to rally the troops for advertising, meant that there would be no Champion to pick up the gauntlet and charge on!

I also became keenly aware that there was no Administration support (department or otherwise) to save the advertising major. I think everybody spoke about getting rid of advertising major in hushed tones when the new IMC came to fruition.
 
Case in Point: I took the advertising majors, (and some PR/other dept. majors) on what I called an Ad Agency Crawl for 11 of my 12 years of teaching at Harding.This educational outing consisted of a day trip to Chicago, (always on a Wednesday), touring 2-3 venues of advertising and media operations on each Thursday and Friday (from my previous network), with a play-date in Chicago on a Saturday, before getting on the bus for the return trip back to Campus on Sunday morning. EVERY year I had invitations to the other members and leaders of the department, and not even once was there a modicum of support. Every year I was the only professor in the department that attended this AMAZING experience. It was sad to see so little support and it broke my heart!

There was also a lack of inter-departmental cooperation with the advertising major.  I asked the Graphic Design department to partner with the advertising program for a variety of educational ventures. I was told no because artists don’t like to write copy!

I asked the marketing professors to send their marketing majors to take my advertising class so they could learn the message strategy and creative delivery that so many of them needed to be aware of. “No, they get what they need from our promotions class.”Over the years there were a few exceptions with marketing majors taking an advertising class or two, but they were the ones that had more vision than the business department leadership.

I don’t even know if the advertising major is still an offered major at Harding. When I left and no one was in place to oversee advising my advertising majors, that role fell to the department chair and not a mass communication professor or professional.
 
In the end, a dwindling number of students, and the reasons listed above, caused the demise of the advertising professor… and the major itself.
 
There’s an old adage in business, “If you think that you’re gonna be missed after your gone, think again.  To prove this, just stick your hand in a bucket of water and then remove it quickly to see the hole you left!”
 
Sometimes I am sad that I was not replaced, but then I stick my tongue in my cheek, smile, and say to myself, “Of course they didn’t replace you Steve, you’re irreplaceable!”
 
I do miss my students terribly. I miss my friends and colleagues. But I am so enjoying my new job and retirement that I have absolutely no regrets.  I have no input or involvement in my replacement and I’m very happy with that.
 
May the Advertising program, REST IN PEACE!

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

Since then, I’ve worked for organizations of mass communications such as newspapers, radio, television, advertising, public relations, public information, freelance photojournalism, and more!

When I finished my first college degree, I majored in Mass Communication.  It was essentially a degree in Broadcast Journalism/Communication, but because it was a brand new major the staffing and curriculum offered fell short of a real broadcast journalism degree.  So, Mass Communication was what the degree was named.
 
My first professional career job out of college was as an intern with KATV-Channel 7, an ABC affiliate in Little Rock, Arkansas. The previous semester the very first Harding student to intern at KATV was assigned to be in the production department. I was the second Harding student to have an internship at KATV, but was the first to do so in the news room.  At the time I had dreams and aspirations of being a news anchor… until I found out that there was a lot of deadlines, and writing, two things I was not very good at! However, I made it known that I was a semi-professional photographer and I could intern under that job description as well.
 
Every now and then, when no one else was available, they called my name and said, “Get a camera! I need you to...” My first assignment, besides just tagging along, was to go to a scene of a shooting and restaurant robbery and just get some film-footage. I saw what the other channels were shooting and I wanted to do something different… Big mistake on my part… I learned that day that even as a rookie intern, I could learn from others, even if they were from the competition. As I retold of my activities of the assignment I even told of some visuals of the scene, like the bullet holes!
 
“Great!” said the assignment editor, “let’s see the film of that.” 
 
Sheepishly and embarrassed, I said, “Uh, well, I didn’t shoot any of that because I wanted something different than what the other channels were shooting.” I learned my station (KATV-7) didn’t have a monopoly on truth, and that even seasoned veterans from a different camp could teach me something.
 
Another such time was when I heard my name called the assignment needed film of what is known in the industry as a “Perp-Walk.” 
 
“Shaner, grab a Bolex, (a silent, 16mm, motion picture film camera), and go to the Faulkner County Courthouse, there’s going to be perp walk.”
 
The first thing I asked was, “what’s a Perp-Walk?”
The perp in the “perp-walk,” was a suspect, or a perpetrator, (and eventual convicted), in the disappearance and murder of 13-year-old Dana Diana Mize from Vilonia, Arkansas. The perp was going to be walked from the squad car to the County Jail facility and booked with charges for such crimes.  I arrived at the walk site early enough to plot my steps walking backwards, frame my shot, and even opening the aperture for maximum light to expose my high-speed film at a point in the walk that was out of the daylight.
 
The patrol cars pulled up, the perp that was shackled in cuffs and chains slowly got out of the car and even slower, walked toward me.  I executed my practice run and had an amazing, story-telling perp-walk film that eventually made the national news! Here’s a link to a journalist/blogger’s recollection of that fateful day in 1976.
https://freedom-writing.blogspot.com/2011/04/death-of-innocence.html
 
Another such time was when I was the selected photographer to fly with our reporter that had a pilot’s license to cover a story in West Helena, Arkansas. The news story was an organized boycott of downtown West Helena businesses by the African American community.  The reporter/pilot was probably the furthest thing from objective I’ve ever witnessed from a professional journalist. He was loud and crude in his disdain for a whole group of people that were boycotting in West Helena.
 
We landed at the local municipal airport and a patrol car from the West Helena Police was there to pick us up and get us back to the police station that was “ground central” for this developing story.  After we sat to talk to the local law enforcement, I fired up the news camera to get an interview with the Police Chief.  The reporter led the police chief to answer questions that were designed to come to a conclusion that he wanted to communicate without ever talking to anybody from the group of boycotters.
 
When we finished, I asked if we were going to go see the disturbance in the street?  “No, he said, I’m going to stay here. I don’t believe I need their comment to write this story.”
 
“What??... wait, don’t you want to give them an opportunity to make a comment?  They might have something important to say?”  He replied, I’d bet my A** they don’t!”
 
I said, “OK. I’m going to go out and shoot some cover video.” As I was filming, a few of the leaders of the boycott, recognizing I was from the news station in little rock began telling me of their grievances. I decided to get this side of the story with or without my reporter.  I had the camera, (a CP16 film camera), on my right shoulder, and in my left hand, the microphone with my arm stretched out as far as I could toward the spokesperson, and simply said, “Tell me what’s going on here?”
 
When we returned to the station in Little Rock, I quickly called the news management team together to inform them what happened.  They all moaned and rolled their eyes in unison, until the News Director said, “I’ll take care of this.  Let’s get back to the show preparation everybody.”
 
Mark Twain has often been credited with a saying about the objectivity of the news media.  “If I don’t read the Newspaper, I am uninformed.  If I do read the Newspaper, I am misinformed.” But, in my research I found out he apparently did not say that  none-the-less, the media outlets of today have about as little credibility as anytime in its history.
 
On the other hand, I’ve never seen as much journalistic integrity as I found in a few of the reporters and anchors that I worked with at KATV.  On one occasion, we were all discussing reporting, individual opinion, its place in reporting, and how do reporters and photojournalists balance their political and personal opinions… MUCH to my surprise they all told me that they do not vote - at all! They all said they didn’t vote so that they could maintain their objectivity and not have the temptation to slant a story towards one position or candidate over another.
 
To be sure, journalists, like any other legal U.S. citizen, have the right to vote.
 
Objectivity has to be the driving force for any journalist in reporting and telling the stories of great importance.  If a journalist's is perceived to be pushing personal political beliefs it could potentially undermine their perceived impartiality. To maintain credibility, many journalists often simply choose NOT to vote in elections.
 
Today, I can’t find any, not even one, unbiased, tell-it-like-it-is-news-source.  I try to watch them all.  What may disturb me the most isn’t the, always on the attack, always negative, always one sided, (although that’s gets very tiresome very fast) but the journalistic integrity, or the lack thereof that exists in story selection. It exists not so much in what side is reported but if its reported at all.  Watch the news today and see if the story line-up is even close to giving fair representation to each side of a story. The bias exists in the selectivity of what to report and what news stories to completely ignore a valid news story as if it never happened.
 
Seth Godin recently published a blog post that spoke of my frustration.  He said,
 
“The gulf between network news of 1968 and cable news of today is dramatic, far more than the shift in, say, a typical sitcom. The Dick Van Dyke show is quaint, but it has a lot in common with a sitcom of today. The news, on the other hand, is completely different.
 
A generation ago, delivering the news was a civic duty. Now it’s a profit center.
The quick edits, the crawling text, the noise–it all exists to remind us of a thrilling movie, not of real life. And the click-baiting reality of online news multiplies that.
 
But real life isn’t like that. An actual house-fire or street demonstration is boring compared to what we’re shown in the media. Does the increase in drama, tension and fear that these production values create produce anything of value?
 
Would it be possible to be an informed citizen without it?  Even more so: Is it possible to be an informed citizen with it?            https://seths.blog/2021/06/production-values/
 
Finally,
Do you like one political figure/political party Or, do you like the other political figure/party?
Irving Becker once said, “If you don’t like someone, the way he holds his spoon makes you furious.  If you do like him, he could turn his plate over in your lap and you won’t mind.”
 
Does this describe your thoughts about the various political party’s today?  Does this describe the media’s coverage you’ve seen the last six months, or the previous twenty years, (or more)?
 
-30-

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

As an Intern I was subjected to many menial jobs such as getting the news directors lunch, picking up his dry cleaning and even opening up his utilities as he came to his position a couple of months after I started as an intern.
 
The first few days of being an intern was an eye-opening experience. Sitting in newscast story line-up meeting was fun and enlightening. Riding along with the reporters or simply assisting in carrying the news and photo recording equipment was action packed and exciting for me.
 
Every now and then, when no one else was available, they called my name and said, “Get a camera! I need you to...” My first assignment besides just tagging along was to go to a scene of a shooting and robbery and just get some footage. I saw what the other channels were shooting and I wanted to do something different… Big mistake on my part… I learned that day that even as a rookie intern, I could learn from others, even if they were from the competition. As I retold of my activities of the assignment I even told of some visuals of the scene, like the bullet holes!
 
“Great!” said the assignment editor, “let’s see the film of that.” 
 
Sheepishly and embarrassed I said, “Uh, well, I didn’t shoot any of that because I wanted something different than what the other channels were shooting.”
 
In March of 1977 I was offered a full-time position as a news photographer!  The only problem was that I had about eight more weeks of part time enrollment at Harding College.  The News Director made it very clear that he was ready to hire a photographer and he didn’t want to wait eight more weeks to do so. And, if I could work something out with Harding and my professor, that the job was mine now!
 
This job was a dream job for a Mass Communication major and a photographer such as myself.  There were lots of candidates from smaller TV markets and other TV stations that would jump at this offer.  I told him, “I’ll take it!”  Now all I needed to do was explain to my professor at Harding, get him to agree, and I would graduate in May with a full time job.       
 
That conversation went a lot better in my head than it did when I went to see my professor about what I had said yes to! His answer was an unequivocal NO! He mumbled something about and internship is just what it is, and internship where I was supposed to learn…  At that point he started sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher speaking to him and I didn’t understand a single thought that would make me change my mind. I did hear him say that If I went forward with the job, he would drop me from the internship program.  The problem with that was that I needed the internship credit hours to graduate. I pushed back a little, but he was firm in his No!  I still don’t understand why he said that, because it was supposed to be an internship to help me get a job JUST LIKE THE ONE, I WAS OFFERED!
 
I left his office consigned to the fact that I was still going to take the job and would simply make myself scarce the last eight weeks of the semester.  I figured if I could show myself in class and on the air (at the campus radio station), I could do both.  A few days later when he asked me what I was going to do, I flat out lied to him and said, the station was going to wait for me.  The end of the semester couldn’t come fast enough for me.  It was hard evading my professor, that conversation and with living that lie!
 
BTW – 40 years after that incident I met up with my former professor when we went out for breakfast while he was in town.  We laughed a lot and told stories.  I figured it was time to come clean on my lie.  When I finally told him that I actually took that job and finished college, I was apologetic.  But he laughed and said, “I knew that you did that at the time. I was worried that if you were working full time that your grades would suffer and you wouldn’t finish college, maybe ever! But, I just couldn’t pull the class credit and allow you to not graduate, but I never wanted you to know, that I knew!"

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

Colored People.  Those were the words my mother would use when she spoke of what we now call Black, or African-American people. She wasn’t trying to be racist as some may accuse her of today, but she was trying to be as kind as she knew how. From my earliest memories my mother was a defender of those that were disenfranchised. She always had empathy for them and respected them. I never, ever heard the “N” word come from her mouth. It may have been her Christian background, her parents teaching her love and respect for everybody regardless of skin color, or the fact that she grew up very poor and was often grouped with others that were poor in northern Alabama that happened to be people of color.
 
It didn’t go unnoticed by me that whenever I was at church there were no African-Americans among the gathered. There were none at my mother’s Peoria home church, the Paris Ave. Church of Christ, and no African-Americans members at the churches I attended growing up in Brunswick, Maine, or Newport, Rhode Island. Even though these former hometowns of mine were heavily populated by military people, one may have expected this to be a very integrated group of people. The reality was that it was still the 1950’s and 60’s. I had plenty of school classmates and neighborhood friends that were Black, but none of my church family were Black.
 
In the mid-to-late sixties Dr. Martin Luther King was rising to national prominence.  I watched the news on TV when he was on, and I was intrigued by this man. I loved to hear him speak.  His rhythm, diction, tempo, and articulation were all very powerful and persuasive. What I liked even more about Dr. King was the creative crafting of words and phrases for which he became known.  I vividly remember the line, that was spoken by Dr. King, “11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America.”  Even at my middle school age, that really gave me pause… He was so right, and I didn’t like it.  I didn’t like that churches and Christians couldn’t sit in the same room at 11:00 o’clock on a Sunday morning, with somebody of a different race and color.
 
Roll forward six years to 1974.  I was now enrolled at Harding College. I was a double major, and one of those majors was Bible. One Sunday my girlfriend, Donna Losak and I, decided to attend worship at her hometown church which was only about 50 miles away in Hazen, Arkansas. That also meant going to home to her parent’s house after church for lunch.  A home-cooked meal from her mom? Yes, please!
 
We pulled into town and found our way to the church building, the Hazen Church of Christ.  It was a small church of about 30-40 people, probably less on most days.  They didn’t have a full-time preacher and only had a paid, part-time preacher, who was also an officer in the Air Force, stationed in nearby Jacksonville. After we arrived and found Donna’s mother and aunt Cora, we discovered that the part-time preacher was not going to be there that day. The church had nobody scheduled to preach.  Donna’s mother scurried up to two of the primary leaders at the congregation and informed them that her daughter’s boyfriend, me, was visiting from Harding, and that I was a Bible major. A few men looked back and picked me out of the small group of members who had gathered around me and Donna. 
 
When they made eye contact with me, I could tell they wanted to talk to me. After some simple welcome and introductions, one of the men explained they were without a preacher speaker that morning, and would I be willing to speak?
 
At the age of 20, I was probably too young to understand the magnitude of what they were asking me to do for them. Most men, even Bible majors, would have been terrified by this request. Not me! I lived for moments like this.  I was probably a little too cocky and arrogant to think that I couldn’t do this. Plus, one of my Bible teachers recently told me, “Always be prepared, you’ll never know when a surprise invitation to speak will arise!” Wow, was he prophetic.  He also said the best way to be prepared for that surprise is to carry some simple notes of a generic sermon in your Bible. I had actually hand wrote them in the back of my Bible on a few of those blank pages that are often in books and Bibles. I just turned in my Bible to those notes and said, “Sure, I can do that.”
 
I must have done OK, because afterwards there were lots of back-patting, smiles, and warm thank you’s for stepping up.  And they PAID me for preaching!  As fate would have it, I received a call about 4 weeks later telling me that their young Air Force preacher was being transferred, and asking would I be interested in taking his part-time job on a permanent basis? I agreed, but told them that when I graduated, I wanted to move on to my professional calling – whatever that might be? It was certainly God blessing me at the time because I was flat-broke most of the time.
 
Now, every week I was leaving Searcy on a Sunday morning, and driving down to Hazen, Arkansas to preach. Of course, Donna, my girlfriend, soon to be fiancé, and then wife came with me every week. We would always eat at her mother’s house for lunch that day. I would preach again that evening before driving back to Harding. We got married the next August and that preaching money was our primary income. I did that for about two years it was a great blessing for me to be able to teach and preach, and for the income that preaching generated. I grew to really love so many people of that congregation many of whom were Donna's relatives.
 
As the months, weeks, and days drew closer to my graduation I kept reminding them that they needed to start their search for another preacher. “Yes,” they said, they would get right on that. However, they never did anything. Surprise, surprise! My supposed end time of my obligation was getting closer as we approached May 1977. I was ready to move on, and they hadn't started looking for a preacher yet.
 
I really didn’t want to just give the leaders at the church a date and say, “After May, I’m outta here!” After conversing with a few of the leaders I realized that they had no idea where to start the process of finding a preacher. I knew of several networks of preacher schools, Bible colleges and preachers looking to move on to a new location. I volunteered to help them find them a preacher. They took that as I would do it all, and that I would stay on preaching until I found somebody... and I did – stay on – until I found somebody.
 
I've found him at the Harding Graduate School of Religion (HGSR), just 90 miles to the east of Hazen in Memphis, Tennessee. The thinking was that if we could get a man from the HGSR he would be higher educated and probably younger.  If he was in graduate school, he could live in Hazen and make the trek to Memphis once or twice per week for his classes and still serve us very adequately for our needs. We never deluded ourselves into thinking we were hiring a preacher that would stay for the next 45 years. After having a “Help Wanted Preacher” announcement posted on the bulletin board on the campus, I soon received a call from a young man named Joel who seemed to check all the boxes and, on paper at least, fit what we were looking for.
 
We brought Joel, and his lovely and sweet wife, over and interviewed him. After we made an offer and it was accepted, the church helped him buy a small house a few blocks down the road from the church building.
 
A year or so later, after Joel had settled into his new job quite nicely, he called me and said, "I want to have a gospel campaign in Hazen. A campaign that would include a gospel meeting. Would you be willing to come back and preach that gospel meeting?” Of course, I said I would, and I was excited about doing so, after all, it was my adopted Arkansas hometown, (through marriage).
 
On the day that we were going to have our campaign, and the day before our gospel meeting started, we were going to simply have a door knocking campaign inviting people to the gospel meeting for which I would be preaching.  All the volunteers from the church gathered at the building the Saturday before the meeting started. We divided up a little-maps-of-the-town. The maps were supplied by the church matriarch, the wife of the primary leader. There were no elders, so the church managed itself by the default rule of a “Men’s Business Meeting.”
 
Ms. Matriarch had gone to a lot of work getting maps copied and handed out with highlighter marking to show where each door-knocking team should go.  I looked at the map and inquisitively asked, “What about the neighborhood over here to the west of the high school?”
 
“Oh, that’s where the colored people live.  They don’t want to come here, they have their own church,” she said. 
 
“Well, can’t we invite them and let them decide if they just want to come visit us?” 
 
“No, she demanded, they are not to come to our church.”
 
Joel and I looked at each other completely stunned about what we were hearing.  I had only been in Arkansas about three years by then and had not had any direct dealings with racism, especially in the church.  Oh, I knew the community all around us was fraught with racism undertones and strife, after all it was the deep south. Maybe I was naïve, but I never expected it in the church for which I was raised.
 
As everyone headed out the door, Joel and I looked at each other and I could almost hear the words that I was thinking, except they were coming out of his mouth when he said, “Why don’t you and I take that neighborhood?”
 
I quickly said, “Yes, let’s go!” 
 
I had no idea the turmoil we were setting in motion by defying Ms. Matriarch. This woman never came to the business meetings, but I’m sure she pulled the puppet strings of the primary leader, her husband and had a backdoor vote in every decision that was made relating to finances and church operations.
 
I found out during the 2-1/2 years I was preaching there that she was absolutely in charge of everything! They had a 40ish year-old son that was mentally challenged and still lived them at home.  He also never went to a Men’s Business Meeting although by the unspoken church rules, (of simply being a member, being baptized and male), he qualified to do so if he wanted.
 
A few months later I heard through my mother-in-law that Joel’s job was in jeopardy and she wasn’t sure why, asking if I knew anything about that?  Of course, I gave Joel and a call and found out that the canvasing the black neighborhood was the beginning of what he perceived to be the end of his ministry in Hazen. He didn’t want to leave. Joel and his wife were expecting a baby and he had another year or so of school at HGSR that he wanted to finish while living and working in Hazen. Joel also told me that there was going to be a Men’s Business Meeting to discuss the matter. I wanted to be there to defend Joel.  After all, I was just as much to blame as he was, if there was even any blame to be had. I told Donna, “We’re going to Hazen this Sunday to go to church, and visit your mother.”
 
As the Sunday evening service ended the men started to gather at the classroom where their business meetings were held. I asked if I could sit in on the meeting? They all smiled and said, “Of course, you’re almost one of us.”  As I entered the room I saw the usual gathering of men plus to my surprise, the 40 something year old, mentally challenged son of Ms. Matriarch.  He had never been to a men’s business meeting in the last three to four years that I had been attending as their part time preacher, or as the husband of one of their young women who was born and raised at that church.
 
The proceedings started with the usual we had this bill come in and it was paid, needed building repairs that needed to be scheduled… and then it happened. Without ever stating a specific cause, Mister Matriarch's, husband brought up the ill feelings of the church by some of the actions of Joel the preacher. Everybody knew it was about inviting the “wrong” people to worship with us. Much discussion ensued. To be fair, there was a lot of discussion and opinions that supported Joel and his so-called lack of judgement. As the talk continued for what seemed like a long, long time, somebody suggested instead of talking about this that a vote should be taken.
 
There were ten men in the room.  Myself, the preacher, and eight other regular members.  A motion was advanced to have Joel let go and a vote followed.  Keep in mind that the mentally challenged adult son of Mr. and Mrs. Matriarch was prepared to vote. That’s when it dawned on me as to why he was attending when he never had before. I concluded that Mrs. Matriarch sent him in with her vote. The vote tally was four to let him go, and four to keep him. What to do? Everybody looked around the room and eventually to me. “Steve, what do you think?” Joel and I did NOT vote. I was technically not a member there and according to unwritten church of Christ protocol only male, baptized MEMBERS of the congregation could vote. I simply said, “Well, I’m not a member, but Joel is a member here. Joel, I continued, how do you vote?”
 
Joel seemed very surprised that I tossed this in his lap, and after an awkward silent pause, a light-bulb went off above his head when he realized what I was doing.  He stood up, looked around the room at everybody and slowly said, “Yes, I am a member here.  My wife and I have lived here for about two-and-half years now.  We live right down the road, here in town.  I have never missed a single meeting in all of that time. So yes, I am a member here... I get to vote… and I vote… I stay,” and he sat down!
 
There was another quiet pause as the men all looked at each other not knowing what to do before I said, “The vote is 5 to 4, for Joel to stay.” Everybody looked around the room again nodded or shaking their heads. And just like that, the meeting was over.  The men stood up, made a few comments of small talk about needing to get home, and we all filed out of the room.
 
Joel and I looked at each and just exhaled… no words were exchanged until Joel simply said, “Wow, I’m glad that’s over.”
 
I sighed, shook my head and said, “Joel, I am so sorry that had to go through this. And, I have no idea what you should do next.”
 
“Joel looked at me and bravely said, “At least I still have a job… for now.”
 
Later I found out that Joel went home that night, dusted off his resume, updated it, and promptly started look for a new place to preach.
 
That night and still to this day I remember the words of Dr. King, “11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America.”  Unfortunately, that statement is still true.
 
Years after that night that I call my, “I Vote I Stay,” moment, I have always lamented the lack of diversity we have in my fellowship of the Lord’s church.  I have loved, befriended, fellow-shipped, worked with, and otherwise lived life with many different people of color.  I have reached out to many people that might be called refugees of our world and in my neighborhood, long before those words became a modern-day political disaster. I have traveled to foreigners lands, and hometowns of those for which I had the privilege to preach, teach and mentor.  Eleven different countries, (so far) and hope for many more before my traveling days are over.
 
Even though I have been a part of a few churches that started to approach an ethnically diverse community of believers, none of them reflected what I thought what heaven will be. In my comfort, or discomfort, about who was sitting across the pew or room with me I always wondered why we were not all together? I hated terms such as the “white church,” “the black church,” “the Chinese church,” or the “Spanish church.”
 
As I reflect on this demographic make-up of the church’s I have been a member, I have consoled my lack of understanding, with a few conclusions;

1. The church in every community should reflect the demographic profile of that community.
2. The church worldwide should reflect the demographic profile of heaven and God’s Kingdom without barriers, culture, and different backgrounds of the various people coming together for the common purpose of praising and worshiping the father, the son, and the holy spirit.
3. I do understand that people that speak different languages have a need to communicate with each other as they worship.
4. I do understand that for many people there is a comfort level of family, culture, hardship, worship style and togetherness vary greatly among the different people of the world. But we are all called to unity under the cross of Jesus. Differences in the list above should not hinder us from worshiping together.

 
To the shame of most Christians in America, the words of Dr. King, “11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America.” is still true.
 
Years later another black man, under great duress after being beaten by white Los Angeles police officers, made a statement that still rings true in my ears.  Rodney King said in a press conference regarding race relations, “Why can’t we just all get along?” That is my prayer for the Christians who see race as a deterrent to unity.
###

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

This is the story of the day I attended the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series Victory Parade,
Friday, November 4, 2016
 
The temperature in HELL was getting lower by the day.
Hello next year!
Finally!
At last!
 
These sentences and phrases were all the buzz that was going on in my head and out of the mouths of millions of Cubs fans and even Cubs haters all of over the world.  The Chicago Cubs, a Major League Baseball team was embarking on their quest to win it all. My favorite baseball team since I was 14 years old won the world series for the first time in 108 years. It was a day I had only hoped would happen someday before I died. Now at the age of 62 the day I had dreamed of, prayed for, lived for and believed in, finally happened.

I really did go into the World Series thinking that the Cubs would win. I realize, I said that every year, even when they were going to be dead last in the standings. I was the one firmly placing my tongue in my cheek and cheering for the Cubs to be in the World Series! This year, I also knew the Cubs had a good team.  No, make that a GREAT team and they had a real shot at winning this.  Alas, I also knew they were the Cubs, and they had let me down so many times since 1968 when I came on board. Intellectually I knew that could happen again, but in my heart-of-hearts I was already celebrating the victory!

All of my students and teaching colleagues knew I was nervous, yet excited.  Some were rooting for me even though they were life-long Cardinal fans. I had even been prepping my classes for the possibility that when, not if, the Cubs would win that I was going to be unavailable for a day or so.
 
The Cubs were actually down three games to one to the Cleveland Indians when I told my classes that if they would join me in praying that the Cubs would win, and they came back to take the series that I would give them the day off and we would have a Pizza party upon my return.
 
And then it happened!  The Chicago Cubs won the world series at 11:42 p.m. Central Standard Time on Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016. Kris Bryant took a weakly hit grounder to him at grassy part of third base. He slipped on the wet field, but still managed to snag the ball and throw it to a very prepared and waiting Anthony Rizzo for the final out, making the Chicago Cubs the World Champions of Baseball. I yelled, I cheered, I laid on the floor rolling around and repeating, “the Cubs are the World Series Champions, the Cubs are the World Series Champions, the Cubs are the World Series Champions!”  I even went to the bedroom and woke up my wife to tell her!  I think she had already heard me from the Living Room.
 
I wasn’t able to secure tickets to any of the games, but I was determined to attend the victory parade, assuming that it was going to be on Saturday.
 
It wasn’t until the next day that I saw that the victory parade was actually going to be on Friday, November 4th. Oh No, I thought!  I needed it to be Saturday so I could fly up there and be back without missing any of my classes.  I knew that I had to be there, and If I was going to do so I had to clear it with my department chairman, A RED-BIRDED CARDINAL FAN! 
 
When I went to his office to ask him for the day-off I decide to go with the, “I’m just here to inform you that I won’t be here tomorrow,” tactic and see how that played out, before I actually asked him for the day off.  “I’m not surprised, he said, I have been expecting this conversation since last night!”  “Go! Have fun! Congratulations!” There are only a handful of Cardinal fans that I actually like, but Dr. Miller is one of them.
 
Just the knowledge and realization that I was going to be at the victory parade in Chicago was almost as good as being there. I spent that evening scouring over the Internet looking for flights.  I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap but I was all in.  My wife never questioned if this was going to cost too much. I knew she would think it was, but I also knew, that SHE KNEW, she was not going to keep me from going. I secured my ticket through Delta Airlines to depart from the Little Rock airport early the next morning at around 6:30 with a stop in Atlanta to change planes and head on up to Chicago.
 
My Day Started Early
I arose and left home around 5:00 a.m. and got to the airport in about 45-50 minutes. As I walked through the main doors of the airport arrived at the gate to check-in there was Katie-Delta Bravo, (my favorite Delta agent). She flashed that big smile and said, “I was wondering when you were going to get here!” 
 
I was dressed in all of my Cubs Regalia, jersey, hat, even sun glasses, there was a scattering of people in LIT that noticed my Cubs fine dress and gave me a high-five or a verbal, “Go Cubs!”  I always turned and shouted, “I’m going to the victory parade!” Every time I shouted those words it was met with a chorus of cheers, and I gotta admit I think there was a little moisture leaking from my eyes!
 
Maybe the best part of the flight was when I transferred to my connecting flight to Chicago.  When I stepped through the door of the Delta Airbus in Atlanta to the final flight to Chicago, the party really seemed to get started.  EVERYBODY on the flight was dressed like I was!  I stepped through First Class and stood at the front of the cheap seats and saw a sea of Cubs fans!  I raised both arms in a victory symbol and shouted, “HOW ‘BOUT THOSE WORLD CHAMPION CUBS?” I then high-fived everybody on an aisle seat until I got to my seat.
 
Upon arriving to Midway Airport in Chicago, I took the Orange Line to the Loop.  I'm from Chicago lived there 24 years. I knew the subway and bus lines like the back of my hand. Midway Airport was on the Southside of town, deep in White Sox territory.  Still, there was no hassle getting from the gate to the “L,” the Chicago subway and elevated transportation system.
 
I walked up and down South Michigan Ave just taking in the early November Chicago air.  It was a bit nippy, but my heart was pumping so hard I didn’t even need a coat.  As I looked up and down the major downtown Chicago Streets, it was a sea of BLUE!  The city of Chicago even had the Chicago River dyed Cubbie Blue for the occasion! The victory parade was supposed to start at Wrigley Field and make its way down to where I had staked out a spot.  I was there about two hours early, and wasn’t sure of the exact route.  As I asked others around me if they knew the route, they kept indicating that I needed to move a few blocks north.  So, I moved, and as I did, I was just soaking in with the celebration of an ever-increasing crowd. And, WOW was it growing!
 
I stopped at the Tribune Tower to buy Special Edition paper of the previous day’s edition! I already acquired the edition of the day when they secured the National League Pennant. Now with this edition I had a collectors item. Well, the Tribune Company was well aware of what this edition was and they had an entire delivery truck full of pallets stacked high and selling them off the back of the truck.  $2 each. I bought three copies.  One for me, and one for each of my sons.  I also bought T-shirts for me and my entire family.  I had a hard time stuffing them all into my back-pack, but I was determined that I was going to get them home, even if I had to by another bag to do so.

Of course, Cubs paraphernalia, souvenirs, and T-shirts were in abundance.  I quickly counted and guess on sizes and bought a T-Shirt for my entire family, (me, Donna, Matthew, Aaron and their wives and children – 10 of us.  I also bought an extra T-Shirt that I wanted to drop at the airport for my favorite Delta Gate Agent, Katie-Delta-Bravo. I try to gift her when I fly Delta because of so much help she gives me when I travel. I tried to find eleven t-shirts of the same color and design so we could have my annual family photo made for the annual Christmas greeting digital card.
 




The actual Victory Parade was so crowded that I couldn’t see anything. It was later estimated that the seventh largest gathering of human beings in the history of the world. How many people showed up for the Cubs Victory Parade? – City officials estimated that approximately 5 million people were in attendance!  The route came from Wrigley Field down to Michigan avenue and on to a sprawling Grant Park.  The city’s tally included everyone who lined the route and the rally throngs.

One of those five million fans was me! I attended the victory parade!  Unfortunately, I am short in stature, and as much as I darted and moved, I could see almost nothing but other fans.  I wanted the experience of being there, but truth be told, I missed actually seeing much of the historic event.
 
I decided to move on to Wrigley Field. I took the Red Line to so I could get photos of the historic marquee of the sign saying World Champion Chicago Cubs! I also wanted to buy lunch - a HOT-DOG from the local ballpark eatery. I also wanted to visit the Cubs Gift and Souvenir stores looking for World Champion stuff.

I found a baby ONSIE and knew right away that I had to get this for Addi Baker. Addi Baker was the newborn daughter of one of my dear friends back at Harding. Adam Baker was from North-Central Illinois and grew up a Cubs fan. There weren’t very many of us in Searcy, Arkansas so when we met a year or so earlier, we bonded pretty quickly. Adam had a beautiful wife and three of the most handsome and sweetest boys – but no daughter – until now.  His daughter was born on the very day that the Cubs won the World Series. I don’t know if it took a lot of convincing but as the Cubs made the last out Adam picked up his now ELEVEN HOUR old daughter and held her up in front of the TV in his wife’s hospital room and had a photo made.  He named her ADDI, either after Addison Street that bordered Wrigley Field, or Addison Russell the starting all-star shortstop on the Cubs roster! It was fun gifting that to them when I returned.  The whole family was excited.  I always joked that I had to wait 62 years for this moment – Adam's daughter only had to wait 11 hours!  I told them they had to take a photo of Addi wearing that ONSIE, at Wrigley Field, sometime in the near future.  They happily agreed and obliged me that photo about 18 months later!

I wandered around Wrigleyville amidst the sea of Cubbie Blue at the ballpark, in and out of the various venues for more than an hour.  I was just soaking all that championship energy in and taking photos.

But as time hurried on, I knew my time was getting closer to departure.  I had done what I came to do. I took The Red Line back down to the loop and transferred to the Orange Line to travel back to Midway airport.  Everywhere I went, from the subway, the “L”, the rooftops, to the airport everybody was in a reveling party mode.  It was loud. It was colorful. It was festive, and it was AMAZING!
 
I made my way to the Delta departing gate still in awe of what I had done that day.  The rest of the day and evening is pretty much a blur.  I do know for a fact that I landed in Atlanta – made my connection to Little Rock, made a stop at the Delta ticket desk and left a World Championship T-Shirt for Katie-Delta-Bravo… and drove home.  As I laid my head on my pillow about 10:00 p.m. I realized that I had woke up in this bed, (as I did every morning), went back to bed (as I did every night), all in the same day. But this day, the 17 hours, from pillow-to-pillow, was a day I never dreamed I would be living!
 
I was a VERY elated and exhausted CUBS fan… zzz…Goodnight, everybody…zzz

In a day where customer service is almost non-existent, Katie Sanders, Ticket and Gate Agent for Delta Airlines saved my one-day-family-excursion by getting me to Chicago on short notice when the OTHER airline failed me!  In fact, she was so good that I gave her a new nickname. Here’s our story.

It was all set. My 18-month-old grandson, Emmett and his parents, were about to embark on a pilgrimage that was exciting, familial and downright traditional in Chicago, and for Cubs fans around the world.  It was the day that Emmett would attend his first Cubs game at Wrigley Field, and I was invited.  My son, Aaron, also a huge Cubs fan, had made the arrangements. All I had to do was get to the game at Clark and Addison Streets in Chicago before game time.  Aaron was going to meet me at the gate with my ticket.
 
I scoured the airlines for tickets that would allow me to fly out of Little Rock early on game day, and return the same day after the game. I found one that was barely in my price range but when I considered that this was Emmett’s first trip to Wrigley Field so I gladly reached for my credit card and made that purchase online. I was so excited that I could barely sleep the night before. 
 
The Little Rock Airport was about a 45–50-minute drive from my house in Searcy, especially on a Saturday at 5:00 in the morning. I knew I had to be ready to wake-and-go, so I had everything ready, short of me sleeping in my Cubs jersey, to walk out the door when my feet hit the floor. But, alas, I had what my family always called, “anticipatory-insomnia.” You know, when you have to get up early, so you go to bed early only to wake up every hour of the night to check the clock and make sure you didn’t over sleep? I also had my phone next to my bed with an extra alarm set on it so as not to oversleep. By the way, I NEVER oversleep, but for some reason I was worried I was going to do so and miss this monumental event in my life.
 
About an hour before I was supposed to arise and get out the door, there was a dinging on my phone that a new message had arrived.  When I looked and barely understood what I was drearily seeing I realized that it was from my scheduled airline telling me that my flight was not delayed, not postponed, but that my flight was CANCELLED, (as in it’s not going to depart at all), to please call and reschedule.
 
I threw back the covers, ran to my laptop, and checked to see what was the matter! I had the same catastrophic message there. It was not just a sleeping-nightmare, it was a real-life nightmare! Cancelled! On the day I needed to be in Chicago for my grandsons first game at Wrigley Field. I called only to be told that there was a large back-log of calls and that my wait time was 90 minutes. I decided to go to the airport anyway.  I knew that I could drive to the airport and get answers from a real person from across the counter and that any way of rescheduling would be faster and easier than on the phone. My fears of not getting a fight were confirmed when I saw the LONG line of disgruntled passengers waiting in line to do the same this I was trying to do.
 
I decided to bite the bullet and at least see what it would cost me to get a flight on a different airline, even at the last hour.  As I perused the limited but various other airlines schedule board, I saw nothing going to Chicago that would get me there before the game started.  Until I arrived at the Delta Airlines ticket counter with nobody in line!  I stepped up and asked an agent about the cost and availability of getting to Chicago?  I explained to the agent a little bit of what had happened to the other flight. The agent looked intently at the screen in front of her for what seemed to be forever.  “Hmmm, I don’t see much,” she mumbled, then looking back again, and finally turning around and asking Katie to come look at this with her. 
 
A smiling young agent came over with a name badge that said, Katie. She flashed me a warm and beaming smile, and asked playfully what I needed to get to Chicago that was so important that I was buying a last-minute ticket, while never breaking her smile? After I took a minute or so to explain my dilemma she said, “Oh, so that’s why you’re wearing a Cubs Jersey!  Well, we don’t want you to miss that game with your Grandson, let’s see what we can do here.” While she was looking, she mentioned that the “other” airline would be giving me a full credit, so if she could find something I wouldn’t be paying for both tickets. I started to feel like something was good was about to happen. 
 
After another tense minute or so Katie turned, looked at me and said, “Here’s what I’m going to do. I am going to put you on a flight for 6:00 o’clock tonight at a much cheaper flight than the one that is taking off in 30 minutes” – I said, Wait, WHAT? “No,” she continued, “then with a change fee I can get you on the next flight costing you only about $50 more than you would have paid the original airline and the plane is now boarding and doors are closing soon.” I have never handed over my credit card and drivers’ license faster in my life.  I then playfully asked her if her father owned this airline?  Now she was confused. “What do you mean” she said? I replied, “Well, any one that can do what you just did must be related to Mr. Delta himself, Is your real name Katie Delta?” We both laughed and I thanked her profusely! I told her, "I have no words to say that  expresses my gratitude." Katie Delta handed me back my credit card and a boarding pass and simply said, “All I ask is that you have fun, and snuggle that new grandson during the game!” To which I, stepping back and saluting her, said, “Let me just put this in Airline Jargon; Katie, Delta, BRAVO! That’s your new name!” I turned to scurry up the escalator and she shouted, I’ll call and tell them you’re on the way, but hurry! As I arrived at the gate the attendant smiled and said, “There you are! We were told you were coming and to make way for the Cubs fan!”
 
Whew, I sat in my seat and exhaled! I was soon experiencing wheels up and clouds below. I made it to the game, sang at the 7th inning stretch, and had a wonderful time. But I never could think beyond what a wonderful service that Katie-Delta-Bravo had provided to me and how lucky Delta Airlines was to have her.  When I arrived back home that evening, I think I babbled on more about my Delta Airlines experience than the game itself.
 
Thus began a seven-year relationship with the best customer service agent I’ve ever experienced, professional or personal.  Katie-Delta-Bravo became my go-to concierge of airline travel arrangements. I went out of my way, and spent extra money to go with Delta because of her. 
 
Every time I needed some travel help, I contacted her and she helped me from near and far. It was like Katie Sanders was like my own personal Delta Travel Concierge.
 
Who do you know?  I know Katie-Delta-Bravo!
Just a few short weeks later, my family went on a wonderful vacation together to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia. My children and their families were going to meet us at a VRBO for the week. Everything was wonderful, except the flight home became problematic. When my wife and I arrived at the gate for our flight, about two hours early, we found out that it was going to be delayed.  Not unusual for any airline I suppose, but this delay was going to cause us to miss our connecting flight in Atlanta, and thus would require us spending the night in ATL as there were no other flights back to Little Rock later than our new scheduled arrival.  The answer was to get rebooked on an earlier flight to ATL that had seats available.  We were at the airport and the process seemed to be simple. The problem was that the Delta computer system for rescheduling and seating in the Philadelphia airport was down, and unless I had a boarding pass couldn’t get on that flight because we had no way of scheduling that switcheroo at the gate.  What was I to do?  The agent at the gate seemed to be indifferent and nonchalant.  He didn’t seem to want to help us.  He just kept giving us the same answer until he said, “I suppose you could call the 800 Delta number and get it switched there.” I made that call only to find out that my wait time to speak to an agent was another 90 minutes, and we would miss the connecting flight I needed to get on.
 
A light bulb went on over my head! Call Katie-Delta-Bravo! I did not have a phone number for her, but we had connected on Facebook, becoming friends on social media after my initial excursion getting to Chicago about two months earlier.  I messaged her saying that we were stuck in Philadelphia airport and needed her assistance, and that if she was at work to please call me on my cell phone.  I figured, what they hay, if she was working, and got my message she’d probably call me. If she was at home or somewhere other than work, or simply never saw the message in time, I’d just deal with it myself.  BUT - she did call me!  She was at work at the Delta counter in the Little Rock airport.  I quickly told her again what the problem was and she said, “I think I can help you, hold on just a sec.” I could hear her tapping on her keyboard for a minute or so (her computer system was apparently not down), until she finally said, “Yes, I found you and your wife and I switched you both to the earlier flight, I’ll text you boarding passes and you should be good to go! KATIE-DELTA-BRAVO! I walked back up to the gate agent as they were boarding the flight we wanted and flashed our boarding passes.  “Wow” he said, “Who do you know?”  I proudly said, "I know Katie-Delta-Bravo!"  He looked confused and waived us on.
 
Cubs Victory Parade:
Roll forward to later that year, November 4, 2016, I was flying to the Cubs World Series Champion Victory Parade in Chicago. I had made my flight itinerary online as I usually did, and to my delight, when I arrived at the gate to check-in there was Katie-Delta Bravo! She flashed that big smile and said, “I was wondering when you were going to get here!”  While I was in Chicago, I bought my friends and family T-Shirts to commemorate the new champions of baseball.  I even bought one for KDB, (my shortened nick name for her). This was another day that I flew to Chicago and back the same day. Upon my arrival back to LIT I went by the ticket counter and asked if Katie-Delta-Bravo, er, I mean Katie Sanders, was still there? She wasn’t, but I was told she would be back in the morning.  I asked if I could leave her a gift and was assured that the agent would see that she got it by leaving it for her in her locker.

And finally, from the other side of the world:
In 2018 I made my every summer trip to Asia to teach in a visiting professor program in China. This year I had quite the busy and lengthy itinerary that took me to Beijing, Xi’an, Lingbao, Wuhan, Hengyang, Xinhua, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, and back to Beijing, all in a little over three weeks.  I also was one of the keynote speakers at an international conference in Zhuhai. Plus, I had plans to go by Hangzhou for a few days after my conference gig on my way back to Beijing to fly home.  It was near the end of my time in Zhuhai that I was confirming my plans and itinerary for my next stop in Hangzhou that I was told that my tour guide and teaching colleague would in fact not be able to meet me thereby cancelling my plans!  I was OK with that.  I had been away from home for three weeks.  I was tired, and missed my wife.  But I had three days to go before my scheduled flight departure from Beijing to home.

When my Hangzhou plans were cancelled there was little doubt about what I wanted to do – go home – three days early.  I called the Delta Airlines to start making the arrangements to switch my flight, but between me being in China, my limited Mandarin language skills, and a time difference I had a difficult time communicating those needs to make that departure change.  I called my wife and asked her to call Katie-Delta-Bravo to see if she could help make those plans.  She did.  KDB actually texted or called me with the news that it would cost a $300 change fee.  Would that be OK before she proceeded.  I quickly did the math and figured, three less day in Hangzhou, with three less days of hotel bills, food and other excursion expenses, it didn’t take me long that by going home early I would save more than $300.  So, YES KDB, get me home please! Katie-Delta-Bravos sent me a new Delta itinerary with the flight change and the next morning I headed to Beijing to make my connection home.  I never would have been able to pull that off without her
 
I consider myself a grizzled veteran of international and domestic travel. There were so many other times that she guided me on flights, SkyMiles, Delta AmEx credit cards, (because she knew I went to China every year), and lots of benefits that she could help me navigate a more pleasant travel experience.
 
I’ve had many other customer service opportunities with her and others from Delta for which Katie-Delta-Bravo has connected me. She and others have helped me and my travel plans with ease and grace. All of her work and interactions really showed the passion and professionalism she had for her career.
 
Katie-Delta-Bravo is simply the best customer service representative for whom I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. She loved her job almost as much as she loved helping travelers that came her way. She loved Delta Airlines and was a great Ambassador for them.
 
I retired in 2020. The Pandemic came and went.  I hadn’t traveled much during those 2-1/2 years. Imagine my dismay when I recently read this message that she posted in her own words on her Facebook page:
 
“I was fired from Delta Air Lines for sitting in the wrong seat on a 1-hour flight from Little Rock to Atlanta.  There. I said it. Most of my friends don’t know about this because I’ve been in shock for almost a year after 11 years of perfect employment.
 
I took a flight using my benefits in May of 2022. Through a misunderstanding of my seat assignment, Delta flight attendant, Kay Elvis-Heick, perceived that I self-upgrading myself when I truly thought the gate agent told me to sit in 1A. It was last minute, the plane was nearing a delayed departure, and my travel companion and I were still standing in the aisle waiting on her to reseat another passenger that would create the seat she originally told me to take. However, she failed to change my name in the system and Kay felt that a medallion passenger on the flight was served injustice by not giving them an upgrade. Fun fact- the medallion passenger in question was my non-rev traveling companion who was a Diamond, but status doesn’t matter when you’re traveling on company benefits.
 
After being questioned twice about why I was sitting in that seat (including a conversation with a red coat in the jet bridge in Atlanta who concluded I was not in the wrong), I was met at my connection with an Atlanta station manager who said my actions were grounds for termination. Instead of communicating with my station manager who was all but begging him to call her so she could clarify what happened (and avoiding her call 3 times) he emailed multiple higher authorities suggesting immediate termination- which they did 20 days later.
 
I’ve appealed it twice to no avail. I filed a complaint with the EEOC, but by the time I found a lawyer interested in the case I was out of my 3-month time frame.
 
So… that’s the story of my &%$#* last year. It just goes to show you should never ever put your job above your own life and family. Someone can rob you at any time, for no reason, and you’ll be left with nothing.
 
I have since created a business making t-shirts and am a vendor every weekend. It has been fun, but it’s definitely nowhere I would have ever thought I’d be. I truly messed up by having all of my eggs in one basket, respected by so many colleagues and passengers, but unable to gain the respect needed from one guy, Brandon Witta, before he sent a life altering e-mail.
 
Cancel culture… it’s your time to shine.
Katie Sanders

Now I appeal to Mr. Delta, the president, the CEO, the whoever made this horrible decision… please fix this debacle and injustice.  At a time when the credibility of airlines is hemorrhaging customers and cash, make this right!
 
I have no doubt that Katie Sanders will get another job in the airline industry. Please don’t necessitate me changing her nickname to “My American Hero!”
# # #

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

I wanted the taking down of my Wall of Fame to be the last thing I did before moving out.  I knew I would be a weepy mess undertaking this effort. The day I went to take down my photo’s, Li Chenyang, (Hope), one of my Chinese students, insisted she come with me to help the photos come down fast and easy. Compared to how long it took to take, print and mount on my wall, the photos did come down fast – but it still wasn’t easy!
-30-

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

-30-
<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>

My son Aaron, and his wife Kara, had traveled to Woodridge, Illinois with me to help load up the last bit of possessions that had not been picked up by the movers and to help me drive back to our new home in Searcy, Arkansas. 8123 Westview now was empty… and I couldn’t help but see my life from the last 24-years flash before me.  It was almost like an out-of-body experience.  If there has ever been a life lesson that I have had shoved down my throat, not always by a malicious somebody, but sometimes by circumstances, it was that, “the only constant in this world… is change.”  Things change, and circumstances dictate that there comes a time in life… when it’s simply time to move on.  On this date in time, I was at that point.  In fact, I had personally been there for several years, but it’s hard to just get up and go somewhere else to start again. But, here I stood, hands on my hips, looking around an empty room, turning around slowly, as if it were in slow motion with thoughts of the last 24 years swirling in my head.  In my mind’s eye I could see vividly the day we moved in to 8123 Westview Lane.  It was a very cold last day of February in 1990. Now, I could feel the cold winds of a Chicago winter and the delightful laughter of my boys playing in their new bedrooms, or wanting to go out and play out in the snow. I could hear Donna assembling her new kitchen, her happy place! As I stood and reflected my life in this house, I could feel the sweat of the many hours of work-equity we put in for investment purposes, and maintenance of our property. I looked at the walls that had been painted, the carpet that had been installed, the new stair railings, and the myriad of other improvements we had worked on so that we could live more comfortably over the last 24 years. And now… it was empty… and it was my last moment to make sure we had everything packed and loaded.  
 
Previous to 8123 Westview Lane we were living in a temporary, much smaller, two-bedroom townhouse apartment, while we waited for the sale of our house in Clarksville, Arkansas from whence we moved in 1987.  We were not able to sell our home before we left so we rented it out so as to have the funds to cover the house payments. It was getting excruciatingly difficult to manage the rent house 600 miles away, start a new job, and live in a two-bedroom townhouse apartment, and the many other changes that occur when you up and move to another state.
 
Finally, in November, 1989, I received a phone call that I had been anxiously waiting for. That call was from my realtor in Clarksville, telling us that our house had indeed had an offer that he thought we should accept. We readily agreed! Now, we could finally start looking for a more permanent housing situation.  We had enrolled the boys in the local school district that we liked very much.  I was not wanting Matthew to change schools again.  It would have been the fourth school for Matthew from Kindergarten through now fifth grade.  Aaron was still too have started kindergarten the next fall. I had grown up moving way too many times and it hurt my educational process in ways that are still evident today.  So, a part of our objective was to find a bigger house that we could buy and have it be in the same school district.
 
We didn’t have to look for very long or very far at all!  In fact, we found our 8123 Westview Lane home just two blocks away.  It was a two story house, or as it was known in the real estate world, a Raised Ranch. It had four bedrooms, albeit small ones, that would give everybody their own room, plus one that doubled as a guest room and Donna’s sewing room, her other happy place!  It also had a room for me to have a home office, and another that was a family/TV room that soon evolved into a Man-Cave. Was this to be our “forever home?”
 
I often hear others talking about their “forever homes.” What is that anyway? It’s certainly not in this world. I have often thought that even though I loved this house, and my job, and my church, I never was one to expect this to be my last stop in my residence, or my career, and certainly not this world. Now on the last day I would ever be in 8123 Westview I was at such a place in life, and it had been in motion for three years, (maybe more). Since I accepted a job at Harding University in 2008, Donna and I had been working to get us both back to Arkansas, settled into new jobs, find a new house and getting on with life far away from Woodridge, Illinois.  The boys were gone and married, living somewhere else and I knew it was time for this house to be a home to another family. This old house had served us well, and the joy, laughter and tears of pain would always echo through its walls. I knew the final day was coming, sometimes at a crawlingly slow pace, and sometimes the days and years flew by quickly. Now, here I am standing in the middle of the upstairs living room as the last moments in this house were occurring… I knew I was about to get emotional, (as I am so prone to do), so I told Aaron and Kara to go on outside, that I would be out in a few minutes because that I needed a moment to look around to make sure I had everything.  In fact, I just needed a moment to myself to allow the tears to start flowing because I knew they were coming.
 
As my eyes welled up with tears, I inhaled a gasp of air, then exhaled, and then quickly composed myself, knowing that there was nothing else to see here. Everything I wanted from 8123 Westview Lane was now in my past… and in my memories.  It was time to go. I wasn’t sure where I would end up, but I knew it wasn’t here anymore.  I also knew, that wherever that was… God would take me by the hand and would lead me to new days and new adventures. 
 
“Let’s go,” I said to myself, and just like that it was over! I walked out of 8123 Westview Lane… and moved on down the road!

     <<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                      >>>> Next Story >>>>                           

She quickly found a book she thought my grandchildren, Gavyn and Josie, would enjoy. They sat at her feet. It turns out, they knew the book and, while my eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Fisch, leaned forward, the story unfolded in her soft but animated voice, and they happily interacted with her. And with that very special story hour, a circle was completed.

After so many years, I was so, so very grateful that I finally got my chance to say, “I am a Mass communication professional… because you, Dorothy Fisch, encouraged me to do so.

Since then, our story has seemed to have a life of its own.  I have been given many opportunities to give this story publically both at Harding University, in Searcy, the small town that I live and even many times at universities in China. The story was covered and printed in the Coastal Times, the local Frankford, Delaware newspaper. In August it was published in a national Christian newspaper publication, The Christian Chronicle.

Finally, I am awestruck by how many times I am now being told by my students, both past and present, how I have a made a difference in THEIR lives.  I call it “the Dorothy Fisch” affect!  One of the responses I received was from a student in China, from the University of South China, that sent me an email after I returned from teaching in Hengyang this summer.  It said,

“My English is not well. Although I sit in front of class, I am not active in class. I love your lesson and especially you teach us that we should thank others right now and not wait for 50 years. That makes a deep impression on me.”

I have grown to love and respect Dorothy Fisch perhaps now more than ever.  And today I want to honor her for the wonderful teacher that she embodies.

Who is it that you want to thank today? Whoever that may be, don’t wait 50 years! ​

(https://www.coastalpoint.com/local-woman-thanked-for-being-a-teacher-who-made-impact/article_b23e8452-a587-56b6-a6d3-bf70ae40f88e.html)

<<<< Previous Story <<<<                                                                     >>>> Next Story >>>>