Page 4 — Thursday, April 1, 2021 — The Hastings Banner
Have you met?
Do you remember?
Editorial page 1
Judy Anderson, who helped bring girls’
interscholastic athletics to Hastings, has
loved sports her entire life.
It began with a simple love for being
active, but the competition and camaraderie
of sports in particular captured Anderson’s
interest as a young girl.
However, growing up in the small town
of Milroy, Ind., in the 1950s and 1960s,
Anderson’s school didn’t offer girls sports.
Instead, Anderson played sports informally
with a group of friends.
“As a kid, I was so sports-minded,”
Anderson said. “Every day after school, we
had a group of kids and we played baseball,
we played basketball, we rode bikes. I mean,
we did not sit around at all, and we were
outdoor kids. I mean, we just played and
played and played.”
During her sophomore year of high
school, Anderson decided she wanted to
start a girls’ softball team and took matters
into her own hands. She created a team and
set up practices and games. The hardest part
was getting her study hall teacher and
baseball coach, Mr. Stevens, to coach for the
softball team.
“My sophomore year, every day I’d walk
up to his desk and I’d say, ‘You know, Mr.
Stevens, you know, if you would just coach
us, I’ll take care of the practices.’ Everyday
day I went up there,” Anderson said.
Eventually, she convinced him to coach
them and scheduled three games against
nearby schools.
“I mean I just had it in my blood that
girls need to play,” she recalled. “And I was
going to do whatever I could to try to [make
it happen].”
She graduated from high school in 1967
and attended Indiana University. There, she
finally had the opportunity to play organized
women’s sports through the university’s
Department of Physical Education for
Women. She played basketball, volleyball
and softball her sophomore, junior and
senior years.
“That was back in the time, you know,
when they didn’t have uniforms for women.
[Women] didn’t get scholarships. They
didn’t get letters,” Anderson said. “I found
out how to get involved, and then, yeah, it
was very fulfilling. It was just like, ‘OK,
this is what I’ve been wanting.’”
After graduating from with a major in
physical education, Anderson landed a job
as a high school physical education teacher
at Hastings High School in fall of 1970.
When she arrived, Hastings had no girls’sports. Anderson decided to change that.
With the help of fellow teachers — in
particular, Patricia Murphy and Cindy
Robbe — Anderson pressured
administration to allow them to start girls’
sports teams.
“[Administration] just kept saying,
‘Well, why don’t we think about it.’ And I
said, ‘No. No.’ I said, ‘Look, you don’t have
to pay us. All I want is your OK. Give us the
OK to start the program. You don’t have to
worry about a thing. We’ll do it all. We’ll
schedule our games. We’ll get our buses.
We’ve got equipment from the boys’ team.
We’ll wear shorts and a T-shirt. You don’t
have to do anything. Just tell me I can do
it,’” Anderson said.
Eventually, she got the permission she’d
sought. And in the spring of 1971 Hastings
had its first girls’ softball game.
In the years that followed, Anderson
continued fostering the girls’ sports
program, holding the first girls’ basketball
games in the fall of 1971 and volleyball
games in the winter of 1972.
She continued to teach physical
education at Hastings for 38 years — also
coaching high school volleyball and high
school and middle school basketball and
softball — before retiring in 2008.
Teaching and coaching at HASS hasbeen a wonderful career, Anderson said.
“The camaraderie with other teachers, I
mean, you become a real close-knit family,”
Anderson said. “And then see the kids come
in and they develop and the friends and
families that you meet through all those
people ... I’m a pretty social person. Well
actually real social. And, you know, I just
like all the contact and to see the light bulbs
go on, when you’re teaching and coaching
and you see them succeed and see them
smile and become better people.
“It’s been a marvelous career — very
rewarding.”
In her free time, Anderson continues to
stay active often, walking and bicycling,
swimming at Algonquin Lake and playing
golf or pickle ball.
For her efforts in starting Hastings’ girls’
sports program and for her 38 years of
teaching, Judy Anderson is this week’s
Banner Bright Light.
Favorite movies: “Hoosiers” and “The
Sound of Music.”
If I could go anywhere in the world:
Ireland, Scotland or Florida. I love water, so
I want to go somewhere with water.
Best advice ever received: Be patient
and find out the whole story.
Favorite season and why: Summer
because it’s nice and warm and you can be
in the water and you can play sports. School
is out so you can pretty much do what you
want when you want.
Important lesson from childhood:
Think about the other person.
Greatest thing about Barry County: I
think it’s a beautiful county. I think it’s a
great place to live and raise a family. I think
it’s filled with really nice people and
generous people.
If I won the lottery: I’m sure I would
give some of it away. I would share with
some people, and I would probably travel
and do some work on my condo.
Favorite dinner: Pot roast with potatoes
and carrots and then cherry pie.
What motivates me: Seeing people
happy and helping people. I like to help. I
like to see people smile. I like to give.Each week, the Banner profiles a person who
makes the community shine. Do you know
someone who should be featured because of
volunteer work, fun-loving personality, for the
stories he or she has to tell or any other reason?
Send information to Newsroom, Hastings Banner,
1351 N. M-43 Highway, Hastings, MI 49058; or
email [email protected].Judy AndersonDid you see?
Play ball!
This photo, thought to be of the 1923
Hastings High School baseball team, was
published in the Jan. 19, 1921 Banner with a
few blanks saving room for the names of
three players staff hoped readers could
identify. They did. A week later, everyone
had been identified. With today being
opening day of the 2021 Major League
Baseball season, here’s a look at a local
baseball team from 98 years ago:Remember this team? – This photo
of a Hastings High School baseball
team, believed to have been taken in the
spring of 1923, was given the Banner by
Mrs. Sadie Sutton, 317 E. State St., but
we haven’t been able to identify all of the
players. Maybe some of our readers can
complete the identification. Pictured are
(front row, from left) Lyle Biddel, Bert
O’Donnell, Ward Green, Ted “Toady”
Ryan; (middle row) Manning Jones, Ted
Knickerbocker, Frank Card, Freddie
Parker, Don Joy, Keith Chase, (back
row) “Chief” Laubaugh, Coach Ralph
Kaiser, Lyle Story and Vincent Eggleston.
Coach Kaiser two years ago retired as
manual arts teacher at the Ionia prison.Silly Sasquatch
A bigfoot cutout has been “roaming” the hills
behind John and Liz Lenz’s Hastings Charter
Township farm in recent weeks. A friend of
theirs made a similar cutout for a neighbor,
which inspired the Lenzes to make one as a
gift for another friend. Ultimately, they decided
to make one for themselves, and it has been
moved around the rolling hills of the crop and
cattle farm. “It is our attempt to spread some
joy and silliness,” Liz Lenz said. “We keep
moving him around the farm, and then we wait
and see if people notice him. Every stinking
time I see it, I laugh. John is a very good sport,
and we’ve had fun moving him [the plywood
creature]. John also has made cow and calf
cutouts to put out, too, because he wants peo-
ple to know the difference.”The living voice
of Easter
As if our troubled world even notices,
Holy Week and the Easter holiday have
arrived again to remind us of our total
inability to solve our problems. Politics,
material wealth, education and medical
research have never provided the answers.
In fact, the work of our hands has divided us
even further.
What has soured us as a people? Why are
we so quick to judge one another, condemn-
ing those who don’t think like we do?
Today’s society is proving the wisdom of
the phrase “history repeats itself” because
today’s world is not unlike the one that
existed thousands of years ago when Jesus
was condemned and crucified. The beauty
of the story is that we’re told he rose from
the dead three days later, on the Sunday we
still celebrate as Easter.
Today, though, we’re still not listening to
the powerful, unifying and hopeful message
of Easter. We allow the simplest of things to
divide us rather than looking for ways to
work together through compromise to deter-
mine our future. We continue to allow a
growing “woke culture” to denigrate our
history and divide us as a people. We let the
issues of the day become wedges between
us, creating caverns rather than bridges that
could bring us together.
“Do not abandon yourselves to despair,”
Pope John Paul II reminds us, “we are the
Easter people, and Hallelujah is our song.”
The Pope points us to the joy of Easter
being a time for us to rejoice and to be
thankful for the gifts of life, love and joy.
It’s the message to our world of the path that
wends its way through all the difficulties,
frustrations and evil we place in front of
each other.
Easter celebrates the resurrection and tri-
umph of Jesus over the evil of men that led
to his crucifixion and death. In those con-
tentious days and in the times of trouble we
find ourselves in today, it’s important to
celebrate the defeat of death and the hope of
salvation.
Easter has always been one of my favor-
ite celebrations because it’s recognized by
all major branches of Christianity. It’s one
day, one week, one season in which the
world is focused on one holy vision. For a
brief moment in time, we are united –
beyond our politics, possessions and dis-
tractions. I like it, too, because it’s one of
those special celebrations that brings fami-
lies together to attend church, enjoy a meal,
baskets of goodies and even an Easter egg
hunt for the little ones.
Even though most of these things were
taken away from us last year due to the pan-
demic, my hope is that this year’s celebra-
tion will bring a sense of solace and a feel-
ing of hope that is missing in our lives.
I’m concerned, though, that the signifi-
cance of Holy Week and the Easter holiday
is waning and that religion doesn’t play as
an important role in the lives of a growing
number of Americans. In recent years,
church attendance has dropped, and a grow-
ing number of families are assuming that
Easter has more to do with eggs, toys and
fun than a significant religious holiday.
After more than a year of dealing with the
coronavirus and the impact it’s had on our
lives, Easter and its renewed look to the
future is needed now more than ever. We’ve
become prisoners to a virus that has over-
whelmed us and changed the way we live
and canceled so many things we enjoy.
According to a Pew Report, 47 percent of
Americans say the virus hasn’t affected
their faith, while 26 percent say, “I am not a
religious person and this hasn’t changed.”
The results suggest not many Americans
found religion more important to them
during the pandemic. The report shows a
significant racial gap, where 41 percent of
African American adults said their faith is
stronger, compared with 20 percent of white
adults and 30 percent of Hispanic adults.
Some religious leaders worry people
have become accustomed to being cut off
from standard practices and will never
return, while others are predicting a revival.
While evangelicals remain an important
demographic group for politicians, the per-
cent of Americans who identify with any
religion has been in decline for decades.
And a recent Pew report found that biggestgenerational drop is with millennial, young
adults born between 1981 and 1996.
Should we be concerned with this sharp
downward trend of adults who do not iden-
tify with a religious group? A growing num-
ber of adults say they were raised as a
member of a particular religion but don’t
actively participate today. What might be
the long-term effects on our lives, and on
society as a whole?
“Having no common values, heritage,
commitment, or hope, then we are a nation
in serious trouble,” Abraham Lincoln said.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.
This nation, under God, shall have a new
birth of freedom.”
Lincoln is one of many leaders who
understood that religious faith and practice
not only solidifies a person; it has vital
value for families, for countries and for the
world. So, why should we, in today’s world,
believe?
Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth
and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me” (John 14:6). Jesus
backed that up by living a perfect life, by
performing miracles in front of skeptics and
cynics and, ultimately, by being raised from
the dead, the reason we’ve celebrated Easter
for more than 2,000 years.
For those who question the importance of
faith in their lives, remember that God
accepts everyone who is willing to ask for-
giveness, which is the greatest evidence that
God is real, and that believing impacts life.
If more of us would strive to live a purpose-
ful life with patience and understanding of
the people around us, we could easily solve
the issues causing much of the hate, anger
and misjudgment in our world. We would
also find more peace in a troubled times.
Everyone must find their own answers,
the beauty of the life of freedom that God
gave us. I find my own answers in the song,
‘Christ Be Our Light,’ a portion of the lyrics
are:
“Longing for peace, our world is trou-
bled,
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your world alone has power to save us,
Make us your living voice.”
The living voice comes from a commit-
ment to one another, not from a focus on
what divides us. It’s a voice that calls us to
celebrate our differences, but not to use
them as a tool of division.
That’s the importance of Easter. It’s
God’s reminder that our problems are
beyond man’s ability to solve them through
politics, education or financial wellbeing.
The living voice can be heard in every reli-
gion, whether it’s Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism, Judaism or Hinduism. It’s a
voice that calls us to focus beyond our trou-
bled times toward a coming time and place
of no division, hate or war.
By aiming our vision heavenward, the
problems we face here are solvable because
we will work with respect and appreciation
for all men and women.
So, as we celebrate this joyous Easter
holiday, let’s aim to renew that “living
voice” that comes from God. Christ be our
Light! Shine in our hearts, shine through the
darkness. Christ be our Light! Shine on your
church gathered today. God is inviting us to
step into the light, a light that will unite all
people, a light that will provide the answer
for which we are in search today.
“So, I say to you,” Christ said, “’Ask, and
it will be given to you; search, and you will
find; knock, and the door will be opened for
you.’”
Happy Easter.Fred Jacobs, CEO,
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