and the 2011 Recipient of the Melissa Fortener McLaughlin Scholarship is...

It was our honor and privilege to award the 2011 Melissa Fortener McLaughlin Scholarship to a very derserving senior at Fairmont...KELLY HART! She possesses many of the same character traits as Melissa...her athleticism, positive attitude, spirit, drive, and love for Fairmont High School. Melissa would approve, I KNOW.
In fact, I'm pretty sure Melissa met Kelly at one time or another (although Kelly might not remember!)...I'm sure Melissa saw Kelly play as a Freshman and on the Reserve team. She was impressed THEN and would be happy with our choice!

Kelly will be attending Bowling Green State University in the fall!


This is a good time to thank EVERYONE who has contributed to Melissa's Scholarship fund, most recently, the Cincinnati Kelts Men's and Women's Rugby Teams (from the annual Fundraiser in October), The Kettering Fairmont Women's Softball Team (from Fundraiser in April), and T.J.Chumps Restaurant (via a purchase of items from the BIG Fundraiser in Oct 2009 - signed NASCAR hats, the nosecone from Danica Patrick's car AND the fender from Jimmy Johnson's (NASCAR)car. THANK YOU THANK YOU.
(which reminds me...Ang and I were talking tonight about the NEXT BIG FUNDRAISER.
Possibly Oct 2012. Just like the last one...Anyone in?
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Last week and a half have been hard...Mother's Day, my mom's birthday, the WEATHER, I'm SURE all contributed. VERY depressed...
then in comes a kindergardner (at school) and changes all that...

"Do you REALLY like butterflies Mrs. Fortener?"
of course I said "YES!"
She said "Well, I think I'm going to be a butterfly
for Halloween next year. Or a dead cheerleader...
I don't know yet..."

I am pretty sure Melissa was sending me a "butterfly" through this little girl. You know that she sends me butterflies, but what I need to explain is (was) Fort's, well, unappreciation for cheerleaders. I think it was when "they" started saying cheerleading was a sport...she just never agreed with that. (Even though she KNEW her mom was a cheerleader. I always told her when I was a cheerleader, you just had to have a BIG mouth (LOUD people, LOUD)-you didn't have to be a GYMNAST. That's what she was referring to I'M SURE. So the fact that this little girl said a "dead cheerleader" would have made FORT laugh! (normally when kids said something funny at school, I would immediately email her, she would forward on to all her friends, then go home and post it on the blog. If you go back and read some of HER posts, you'll find some for sure!)

Then my first class, fourth grade, only came in for about 15 minutes because it was field day and the busses would be picking them up around 8:45. Some of the kids wanted me to continue reading FABLEHAVEN, and some didn't - so I told the kids who didn't want to listen to go get a GUINNESS (I laughed to myself on THAT one because I thought "How many librarians tell their kids to get a Guinness???? - Book of Records that is...)

and speaking of school...when I put my last book order in, I decided to find a book about RUGBY, for KIDS. This is what I found. It's a GRAPHIC NOVEL (aka comic book)-the kids love it. Ok - the kids that love COMIC BOOKS love it. It's for YOU Fort!


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haven't closed with cute photos of the boys in awhile...Fort LOVED to do that...
so here you go...

Drew & Max watering Pam-ma's garden....