Mailer enforces need to elect Winn, McGrady
Ingrid Chapman was one of the AV’s indispensable people
Iam in full agreement with my friend Dennis Anderson on the despicable attack mailer against Donita Winn that littered Valley mailboxes last week.
It had an extremely high LPSI Ratio (Lies Per Square Inch, a term I just invented).
Winn is an extraordinary public servant who has donated literally thousands of hours to the students of this Valley.
She is running to get back on the Antelope Valley Union High School District Board, and the community truly needs to get her and incumbent Jill McGrady elected.
Why? Because they will put an end to the Reign of Error foisted on the students, staff, faculty and administration of the district by Victoria Ruffin and Amanda Parrell.
Winn and McGrady are among the best Board members I have observed in my four decades of following politics in these parts, and Ruffin and Parrell are the absolute worst.
Look up “no brainer” in the dictionary, and you see a picture of this election choice. Winn and McGrady will take away Ruffin and Parrell’s ability to paralyze the District.
I normally do not endorse candidates. But in my opinion, it is vital that these two be elected and Ruffin and Parrell’s power be diminished.
To paraphrase the overworked expression about presidential races, “This is the most important high school Board election in our lifetimes.”
I just turned 63 and I started following baseball when I was seven, so even the youngest players from those days would now be in their late seventies.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that many of the heroes I first read about and whose persona I adopted in neighborhood Wiffleball games are now leaving us.
Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford — all of whom played in the 1964 World Series, my first — have died in the last few weeks.
Time continues its inexorable march.
Los Angeles County is allowing, or will soon be allowing, some schools to practice sports. Sort of.
You can have only 10 kids together at a time, and they need to maintain social distancing. No locker rooms or showers.
Oh, and if it’s a sport that uses a ball, the players must use different balls. So no passing or handing off in football? No passing or rebounding in basketball? No anything in volleyball?
Years ago, the late great Valley Press legend Bill Gillis used to have a catch phrase for dubious ventures. All of us in the Sports Department picked up on it, and it seems appropriate here:
“Hardly seems worth it.”
I was sorry to learn of the passing of a longtime community favorite, Ingrid Chapman.
Ingrid was a public relations person, having once worked for comedian Phyllis Diller as an assistant, and she was involved in myriad local organizations and events.
She was one of those people who gets things done, the kind of person every community needs.
Her dad, Bram van der Stok, was a highly decorated Royal Air Force pilot in World War II whose successful escape from a German prisoner of war camp was depicted in the popular 1963 film, “The Great Escape.”
Ingrid left a big mark on our Valley, and she will be missed.