Ark Valley News - Out of the office

Out of the office
By Chris Strunk
Last Updated: September 13, 2018

It's beginning to feel like fall

It's that time of the year again.

The Ark Valley News is continuing a couple of annual fall traditions designed to get you involved.

The football picks contest and the Fall Festival medallion hunt start this week.

You can drop into the 10-week picks contest any time you want, but it's best to not miss a single week if you have your eye on the grand prize. We give out weekly prizes, but scores accumulate for the overall winner. This year's grand prize includes four tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs game against the Los Angeles Chargers in December, hotel stay and some spending cash. The Chargers will be looking for some revenge after the Chiefs beat them in the opening week.

How about Tyreek Hill? Impressive.

Weekly prizes include $20, $10 and $5 in football bucks to spend at sponsor locations.

Last year, veteran picker Bob Scantlin won the contest. The year before, Mike Haden was the big winner.

It's always up for grabs.

A big $500 check is up for grabs in the annual medallion hunt. Clues will be posted starting Sept. 13.

We hope you'll get involved.

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Of course, this all means that Fall Festival is around the corner.

Valley Center's biggest party will be Sept. 21 and 22. The chamber of commerce has been hard at work planning the giant get-together.

My family enjoys it each year, but my kids don't anticipate it as much as they used to. They used to save their money for months to get ready for Fall Festival. Now that they're older teenagers with jobs, they're excited about it, but not obsessed.

No matter what, it will be a good time.

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Speaking of a good time, the nearly four-hour drive to Garden City last Friday was made well worth it when the Valley Center High School football team came through with a big win.

What I saw from the sidelines was a rejuvenated team. The defense was finally amped up like it used to be. They were making big plays and celebrating each other's successes.

It was good to see Scott L'Ecuyer get his first win as a head coach. After the game, he deflected some of the praise and spread the love around. He even said he hopes the win helps us sell more papers.

I appreciate him thinking about us, too.

He deserved the success, as did the entire team and coaching staff.

We'll see what happens this week with Maize South. Valley Center hasn't had any success with the Mavericks, losing all four meetings since 2012. The Hornets didn't play Maize South in 2016 or 2017.

There's no week off with this schedule. That's for sure.

It also will be nice to see Mike Smith get inducted into the Valley Center Hall of Fame this Friday. Smith coached a lot of good teams in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Also inducted will be Les and Nancy Anderson, Gerald Lawrence and Nancy Scriven.

Chris Strunk is publisher of The Ark Valley News. Reach him at 755-0821 or news@arkvalleynews.com, or find him on Facebook.