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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The "It's Who You Know" Story

It was an ordinary day. We were looking at the Lancaster Newspaper to see if we recognized ourselves. It seems that someone in the family was always getting their photo in the paper. Since I taught photography in high school and very often invited local photographers to come to my class to speak, I became really good friends with most of the local newspaper photographers. As the years went by and my family began to grow, whenever the photographers needed a feature, weather, news or sports shot, they would call, since they knew I had someone in the family that would fit into one of those categories. It all started with our oldest son Derek when he was two years old and the spring flowers started to come up. They were there in the front yard taking a weather photo. When our daughter Brynn, who was born on the 4th of July, turned four, they were at our house for a feature photo with the cake. Our youngest Tad did the same "flower in the front yard" picture when he turned two and spring rolled around. Then it was my wife's turn. She was working at a stand set up by our church for Lancaster Town Fair and it was a perfect feature shot. I believe the photographer that took that shot had just left my classroom before heading to the church. When our two oldest became involved in sports, it seemed like they always had their photo in the paper. They experienced success in athletics so they were natural choices for the paper. Plus, remember I knew the photographers! I had to constantly explain to my friends and colleagues at work how they were the only ones from the school who had their photos in the paper. When my oldest son continued to college and pitched for Villanova, they did a feature story on him with a photo. Gees, getting boring isn't it? When Tad was a senior in high school, he won numerous awards in the local Scholastic Arts competition with his photographs. Now it really sounds fishy, I know. Well, they featured him in a full page photo which was taken at school in my classroom. Next came Carol again, this time with a feature story about her and our cat Otis. It seems the paper was doing a story about our vet and custom blended prescriptions and found out we had a cat that needed medicine for a heart problem. Another photo opp. Oh yea, I wasn't left out. They did a feature in 1990 when I was picked as an outstanding educator in the public school system. It never ends, does it? It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. PS - Photos are: Top right-Brynn, Top left-Tad, Bottom right-Derek, Bottom left-Carol and Otis

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