AMERICAN BIRKEBEINER: TAKE TWO

You can feel it on the rise
You can see it in their eyes
The tension seems to saturate the air.
At times you almost feel alone
That wind is chilling you to the bone
But look around you now, we're seven thousand strong...

Let the Birkie grab your soul, push you down the trail, help you lock on your goal.
Let the iron-thighed clusters keep the pace moving strong
So Cable to Hayward won't last very long
As you go, through the snow
With the seed of speed, being all that you need
Let the Birkebeiner grab your soul.

The masses start to move
Every skier tries to find their groove
That elusive pace that each one wants to wear
The up-hills look so high
And Fire Tower seeks to split the sky
But as you summit her, she'll sing your victory song.

Riley says: "Life is either a great adventure or nothing."

A PEAK PHYSICAL SPECIMEN

Gorgeous, Absolutely Gorgeous.

Riley says: "Life... It tends to respond to our outlook, to shape itself to meet our expectations."

PAY THE COST

Sometimes you just have to grab a crocodile by the jowls and say, "Listen here Lyle... I don't care that you have a bite force of more than 5,000 pounds per square inch, weigh one ton and have a four-chambered heart... I'm the boss."

Riley says: "Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you will die today."

ANGELIC SENDFEST

Hells yes angels can send...

Riley says: "If you climb up a tree, you must climb down the same tree."

FOREVER THE EPITOME OF SELFLESSNESS AND HUMILITY

I am so proud of you, I will miss you so much, and I love you.

Edythe Mae Hammack Fellows
(February 20, 1922 - February 17, 2009)

Mrs. Edythe Mae Fellows, 86, Bolivar, died Tuesday, February 17, 2009 in Citizens Memorial Healthcare Facility. The daughter of Henry Chatham and Calla Avis (Smith) Hammack, she was born February 20, 1922 at Southwest City, Missouri.

She and Jack B. Fellows were married in 1939 at Southwest City, MO. The family lived in Bloomington, IN until 1965 when they moved to Potomac, MD. She moved to Bolivar in 2004 from Silver Spring, MD and attended First and Calvary Presbyterian Church in Springfield, MO.

Edythe was a graduate of Southwest Baptist University (formerly Southwest Baptist College) in Bolivar, MO, Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK, and received her Master of Religious Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, TX.

She was employed by Challenger Research Inc., which became Hydrospace-Challenger, Inc. and finally became EG&G Washington Analytical Services Center in Rockville and Gaithersburg, MD as an Executive Administrative Assistant from 1966 until retirement. For 25 years she was a church missions volunteer traveling to 18 countries around the world serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

Her parents, a sister, Marjorie Wasson, and brothers, Hubert Milton Hammack, Russell Charles Hammack and Emmette Hammack preceded her in death.

Survivors include her husband, Jack B. Fellows; 5 children, David Wayne Fellows and wife, Sarah, Columbia, SC, Dawna Hopeman and husband, Ross, Lander, WY, Dr. Jack D. Fellows and wife, Kay, Boulder, CO, Douglas Fellows, Bolivar, MO and Dr. Neal Fellows and wife, Deborah, Lake Leelanau, MI; daughter-in-law Patti Gehrke, Conyers, GA; 3 sisters, Frances Fugate, Claremore, OK, Flo Davis, Springfield, MO and Beverly Hammack, Conyers, GA; 18 grandchildren; and 9 great-grandchildren.

Riley says, "Sometimes you have to lose the people closest to you in order to realize exactly how much they meant to you."

EASY FELLA, EASY

I'd back up slowly if I were you...

Riley says: "It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."

NIGHTMARE

Above you'll find a startlingly accurate depiction of what I looked like in a dream last night when I was told I had driven into Nebraska and could never leave... Terrifying I know.

Riley says: "No one dies for what they know to be true. They die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true.

VISION

Riley says: "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."

THE WEATHER IS HERE, WISH YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL

Greetings from the "Jewel of the Prairie," Grinnell, Iowa.

Riley says: "It's a dangerous business going out your door. You step onto the road and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

PLANKTASTIC

Riley says: "The world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in."

HEER-OH

Riley says: "Each of us stands alone in this vast world, momentarily bathed in a ray of sunlight. And suddenly it's night. If you stand together with me, we can share the sunrise."

MAD POW DISEASE

Riley says: "To learn, read. To know, write. To master, teach."