Mark’s Musings – May 15, 2013

| May 14, 2013
Mark Fortune

Mark Fortune

The month of May is typically one of the busiest months on the calendar here in Coshocton County – and I would imagine – in many locations. With graduation and graduation parties, spring sporting events, celebrations, Dogwood festival, end of school year galas and outdoor yard and garden work gearing up, it is no wonder May brings a busy slate of activities for most families. Mix in Mother’s Day and Memorial Day and you have a wonderful month and several reasons to get together with family and friends.

Mixed in with all of this is the annual Coshocton County Relay for Life – now in its eighteenth year. This annual event celebrates life and honors the memory of those that lost their valiant struggle with cancer. This edition of The Beacon contains the annual program with a schedule of events, entertainment, lists of the In Honor of and In Memory of luminaria and more. This event begins at 6 p.m. on Friday evening, May 17 and concludes 24 hours later, on Saturday evening, May 18. The beginning lap followed by the caregiver lap, is always a special moment as a sea of purple flows as one onto the track at the Coshocton County Fairgrounds. If you are not busy, or perhaps even if you are, come out and cheer on these brave heroes as they continue their fight against this dreaded disease.

Locally, across our state and nationwide, there are so many tragedies and just bad things permeating the news – the annual Relay for Life somehow summons the positive that surrounds something negative with friends, family members and loved ones showing up to support those that they care about, giving of their energy and time to raise money to help continue funding the battle to find a cure for cancer. What could be more positive than that?

It’s easy to become jaded by what you see or read from the national news – and most of it is bad news. If you focus on that, you may become jaded yourself and find that your viewpoint becomes cynical. Focus instead on the good stuff happening right here in your own backyard – which far outweighs the negative. If you were to put it on a scale, it’s not even close. There are good kids doing great things, adults doing positive things and setting an example for their kids and those close to them.

This issue of The Beacon continues to put those positive events in printed form, and again, I am confident that there are more of these happening across our community than we know about or can even publish. We certainly make every effort to get the job done but at times, especially this time of the year, we miss some. You can contact us about an event or something you know about that is positive and we will do our best to make something happen as space and time permit.

 

Category: Mark's Musings

About the Author ()

I live with my beautiful wife Nancy on a small farm just outside Coshocton. We have been married for thirty two years and have two grown children, Jessica and Jacob. Jessica is married to Aaron Mencer and they are employed with Coshocton City Schools. Jacob is a sophomore at Kent State University. I graduated from River View High School, have a Bachelor’s Degree from North Carolina Wesleyan University and am actively involved with the Roscoe United Methodist Church, serve on several local committees and am a member of the Coshocton Kiwanis Club, having served as Past-President. I love reading, especially military thrillers, the Civil War and history in general. My goal is to write a novel. My wife and I are also AdvoCare distributors and encourage anyone wanting to lose weight, gain energy and better health to explore AdvoCare at our website; www.fortunes4advocare.com. I love the media field, innovative technology and have worked in newspapers for over 30 years – in fact, my first job was delivering newspapers. The Beacon is a dream made possible by the support of this community and a great team. I hope to continue serving Coshocton County for many years.

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