In Which the Spawn Gets What She Deserves

Mondoville’s Humanities Dept. (including the English, History, Religion/Philosophy, and Spanish programs) held its annual awards reception this afternoon, with heavy hors d’oeuvres and general good feeling, with about three weeks left in the term. Awards went to outstanding seniors in the abovementioned programs, with one exception.

Each year, the History program awards the Dorothy Jeffcoat Fellowship for Archive Preservation to a rising senior English or History major with an interest in developing the college’s archives — which moved from potential to actual a couple of years ago, under the administration of my colleague (and award-winning Civil War historian) Tracy Power. This year’s award went to… well,

But there was more to it than that. After she received her official certificate, Tracy handed Emily another envelope, saying “You have to open this in front of your mom and dad.” So she did.

Yeah, he reads the blog.

We plan to frame both certificates, and Em plans to help work on a recent donation to the archives, the collected papers of Thomas K. Perry. The late Mr. Perry studied and wrote about the sports teams (primarily baseball and women’s basketball) sponsored by textile mills in the region from the late 19th C. to the mid 1950s. He also wrote of the textile leagues’ most famous participant, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. I’m looking forward to hearing about what she finds in there.

So it’s been a good afternoon. Proud of you, kid!