Saturday, June 2, 2012

MSAE’s Eyre retires after 25 years
» Sports » The Ottumwa Courier

Some recent wins from Team Eyre are on display.


MSAE’s Eyre retires after 25 years » Sports » The Ottumwa Courier:


June 1, 2012
MSAE’s Eyre retires after 25 years
SCOTT JACKSON
Ottumwa Courier

FAIRFIELD — There are many tennis programs across the state that hope to have the kind of busy schedule Lawrence Eyre had this past week.

Last Friday, Eyre took three of his talented players from Fairfield Maharashi to compete in the Class 1A singles and doubles tournament in Waterloo. Sam Arsanjani, Thomas Weiss and Sam Stickles made sure that trip was a two-day stay at Byrnes Park as Arsanjani finished fifth in the singles tournament while Weiss and Stickles finished fourth in doubles play.

On Tuesday, Eyre watched Arsanjani, Weiss and Stickles join the rest of their Pioneer teammates to compete for the 1A state team tennis title in Des Moines. Playing against three of the best teams in the state, MSAE showcased their depth and battled within an eyelash of a state title before settling for fourth after two tough 5-4 losses to eventual state champ Davenport Assumption and Boone.

“So close, yet so far,” Eyre simply said after Tuesday. “It was a tough day for us. Our guys came within an eyelash of a berth in the state championship match.”

It was also a little tougher for Eyre, who was coaching MSAE at the state team tennis tournament for a state-record 15th time. It would also be the last time he would coach the Pioneers in the 1A ‘final four,’ as the patriarch of the elite Pioneer boys tennis program announced his retirement 25 years after first starting it.

“I’m retiring with a deep sense of fulfillment and with gratitude for the growth that 25 years of coaching high school tennis has brought me,” Eyre said.

Those 16 titles include seven singles champions, five doubles champs and four championships for the Pioneer team as a whole with the first of those coming just three years after Eyre started the program. The runs of dominance for the MSAE boys includes consecutive state titles in 1999-2000, three titles in four years with a championship win in 2002 and a state-tying record eight straight trips to the state team tournament that continued with the Pioneers’ run to Eyre’s final state team tournament as a head coach.

“It has been a privilege to work with Maharishi school tennis players since 1988,” Eyre said. “Their commitment to continuous improvement has produced 16 state championships.”

It was clear from the talent that competed this year for MSAE that Eyre certainly hasn’t lost his touch for getting the best out of his players. Weiss became one of just four Pioneer players ever to qualify for both the state singles and doubles tournament as well as state team tennis, joining Justin Vigmostad (2000), Owen Blake (2008) and Derek Thatcher (2011).

“He really sparkled against (Davenport Assumption’s) Luke Powers in his morning match,” Eyre said. Weiss earned a 6-1, 6-0 win in what would be his last singles win of his Pioneer career.

Other highlights from Eyre’s final day as Pioneer head coach included watching Stickels, just a freshman, beat a pair of senior opponents with state tournament experience in straight sets. Junior Raphael Gelfand’s perfect day of four wins, including two singles wins and three wins in tiebreakers, shows that Eyre is leaving the MSAE boys tennis program in good hands to the next head coach.

Eyre’s final MSAE tennis team finished with a 9-3 dual record with two losses coming to the two team state champions (Iowa City West and Davenport Assumption). In his 25-year career, Eyre guided MSAE to an overall dual record of 240-67, an overall .782 winning percentage.

For the 64-year-old Eyre, starting and building such a successful tennis program has been a labor of love for a man that grew up playing the game from the age of 11. The Moline, Ill. native, Quad Cities singles and doubles champion, Yale graduate and national hall-of-fame head coach has always enjoyed teaching tennis to what now tops 15,000 pupils over the years.

“I love sharing this game with young people,” Eyre said. “I’ve enjoyed helping them develop their skills and extend themselves while remaining so enthusiastic. That’s been so incredibly rewarding.”




'via Blog this'


Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 3:17 PM 1 comments
Labels:

Thursday, May 24, 2012

The Medd Brothers Made This Photo Possible


The Medd Brothers invented the Blizzard and the machine that makes them.

The machine is still licensed by them and made in East Moline.

The Blizzard is a Jackson family favorite, but I normally get a large cone to share with everyone.

So Warren Buffet owes them big time, but the Medd Brothers owe Lady Margaret Thatcher. In her first job as a chemist, Thatcher helped develop the emulsifiers that made soft-serve ice cream possible.
Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 3:24 PM 0 comments
Labels: ,

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Deteriorating wall threatens Moline graves - Quad Cities Online



Deteriorating wall threatens Moline graves - Quad Cities Online:


Deteriorating wall threatens Moline graves

 
Share
Originally Posted Online: May 21, 2012, 6:46 pm
Last Updated: May 21, 2012, 6:52 pm
Comment on this story | Print this story | Email this story
By Dawn Neuses, dneuses@qconline.com
MOLINE -- A 138-year-old retaining wall in Moline's Riverside Cemetery is falling down, allowing the hillside above -- which holds graves -- to break away in places. Terraces below and near the wall also are eroding.

Waiting until the wall gives way would cost more to fix than fixing it before that happens, cemetery manager Todd Slater said, adding that, if the hillside gives way, it could affect adjacent burial sites.

On Tuesday night, Moline city engineer Scott Hinton is scheduled to give the committee of the whole a presentation on the wall, which was built in 1874.

He said the wall is made of limestone blocks stacked three high, and each block is about 1-by-3 feet and weighs about 500 pounds.

The wall is supposed to support the hill, but age has weakened it. Mr. Slater said the deterioration has been noticeably under way since he started with the city in 1991.

The wall follows a curving road that is closed to the public but used as a maintenance road. Some blocks have fallen, and, in two places, entire sections of the wall have washed out.

Mr. Slater said former park and recreation director Milt Hand had an engineering firm look at the wall in 2000 and sought bids for replacing it after the firm said it couldn't be repaired. However, the parks department couldn't afford the more than $200,000 cost, Mr. Slater said.

On July 4, 2007, a 3-inch overnight rain caused the northern terrace of the cemetery -- across the road from the retaining wall -- to give way, filling the nearby city swiming pool with mud, closing it for two days. Mr. Slater said there is a risk of continued erosion on that terrace, as well as the eastern terrace in the same area.

Mr. Hinton said the city's Capital Improvement Program this year started including funding specifically for retaining wall projects on city right-of-way. However, the money is not meant for park projects, he said.

The parks department receives general fund revenue each year to operate the department and address maintenance. However, the department operates separately from the city and is governed by a park board.

The committee-of-the-whole meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. on the second floor of city hall, 619 16th St. The city council meeting immediately follows.

Agendas are available at city hall or www.moline.il.us.


'via Blog this'
Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 1:41 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Aerial Views of John Deere Junior High.
Photographed by Kris Streed's Father



Thank you, Dave Coopman, for sending the photos.
Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 6:11 AM 1 comments
Labels: , ,

Saturday, May 5, 2012

MHS 67 - Lost Their Entire Database - Please Help



Jan McKenzie:

I got this from the Moline Class of 67. Pass it along if you know any of them.

If you are from the '67 class of Moline - HELP - the committee email for the reunion - has LOST all the contact information - yes, all - no emails, addresses, names - zip/gone... please go to our the Moline Class of 67 reunion website: http: Moline-class-of-67.com and go to the contact update page (big green arrow on left top of page) and give us your information - again... please. If you have emails of any of our classmates, please ask them to go there also and do the same... post this on your facbook and just get the word out there... thanks, pam (stannke) walker.
Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 3:22 AM 0 comments

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Kermit Wells Honored as Moline Boys Choir Director



After 54 years, choir director to bid farewell - Quad Cities Online:


The annual Moline Boys Choir spring concert later this month will be extra special -- not only because the April 29 program will inaugurate the new auditorium at John Deere Middle School, but that the choir, alumni and community will bid farewell to its longtime director, Kermit Wells.

After 54 years with the choir, Mr. Wells, 75, will retire this summer. The beloved choir (now with 36 regular members and 14 younger cadets) was founded by Frederick Swanson in 1948; Mr. Wells joined as an assistant in 1958. The MBC has toured the country and overseas, made many recordings, and included as many as 200 boys in three separate groups in the 1980s.

"I still enjoy teaching the kids; I don't have energy for concertizing," Mr. Wells said. "It takes so much stress, physical endurance for the concerts. I just don't have the energy for it. "

Former music coordinator for the Moline School District and a junior-high and high-school music teacher (he retired in 1995), Mr. Wells has directed MBC since 1973. He leads five one-hour rehearsals a week at the Coolidge auditorium; singers -- from second through ninth grades -- are required to attend at least two each week, and three in the weeks leading up to a concert. Mr. Wells often doesn't see the whole choir together until the concert.

The holiday season is a busy time for the choir, with several concerts in November and December. Each spring's concert usually features alumni, and the 3 p.m. concert April 29 should be extra full, given Mr. Wells' announcement, said choir alum Steve Slininger, of Silvis, who serves on the board and is heading up the search committee.

"It was pretty amazing," he said of the director's half-century tenure. "When I was a boy, the transformation occurred from Dr. Swanson to Mr. Wells. He was planning to do this on a temporary basis. He's been doing it temporary for 54 years."

"He was very big on tradition," Mr. Slininger said of Mr. Wells, who also taught his three brothers, and his son, Brian. "We kept up a lot of activities we did when I was a boy. He has his own different style of dealing with the boys. It used to be we never got away with anything."

The choir has hundreds of people across the country on its mailing list, and would like to find an alumnus to succeed Mr. Wells. "It should be somebody who knows the boys choir procedure," he said.

Mr. Slininger said the goal is to hire a new director by August. As he's done for 50 years, Mr. Wells will accompany a group of choir members to a week-long camp in Green Lake, Wis., in July. During the summer, the choir doesn't rehearse regularly, but meets for the week before the trip, and performs while there.

Mr. Wells said he's proudest of getting boys interested and involved in music.

"It's something boys don't come by naturally," he said. "To boys, music singing is a girl thing. Once they get into it, get to know each other, they enjoy each other -- the music, the applause and the standing ovations."

Now it's time for their dedicated director to take a bow.





Quotes from Boys Choir alumni

Reactions to Kermit Wells' decision to retire poured forth in a strong, sustained chorus on the Facebook page "Moline Boys Choir For Life":

Matt Sedlak: "Mr. Wells, you taught me so much. You taught me to believe in myself and to not be ashamed of the voice and personality God gave me. Thank you for being my Moline Boys Choir Director."
Jeff De Leon: "An era is truly coming to an end. Thank you for everything you've done to inspire youth to pursue the arts in the Q.C. and for being an incredible teacher."

Chadwick Vogel: "There never was a more dedicated, wonderful director. Thank you for the years of discipline, and beautiful music you gave to each and every member of the choir."

Tom Mahalla: "But how can one replace that which is irreplaceable?"

Peter Holst: "Thank you is not enough. You have been such a guiding influence in so many young lives. Thank you Mr. Wells!!!!!"

Steve Van Daele: "Kermit, you have been such a positive influence to 'your' boys over the years. One can tell by the following you have from afar on FB. Your dedication has given many the 'escape' they were always looking for. I am proud being an Alumni of the MBC."

Andrew Swenson: "Kermit, Many thanks for your years of service to MBC! My MBC experience provided a solid foundation for almost 40 years of choral singing, an indispensable part of my life. You were a big part of that MBC experience."
Bruce John is in the center, fifth row,
and John Robeson (redhead) is fourth row, on the right.
Dr. Fred Swanson is directing this Christmas concert, probably 1960.






'via Blog this'








Left click for more detail.


Larry Eyre's mother kept this certificate for 50 years. The fine print is worth reading - "not for pecuniary profit."

John Robeson, MBC member from the same year, sent some scans which were posted.


Posted by Ichabod the Glory Has Departed at 4:12 PM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)