CCM Thursdays: B-A-L-O-G-N-A

Character Week continues...
Today the CCM in CCM Thursdays stands for Classic Commercial Music.  You will soon understand why!  Back in my days at Springfield Friends Meeting in the early 1990's, I made a startling discovery- cheerleaders are great spellers!  I used to kid Holly Harward about it all the time.  There are many cheers that require the spelling of words (such as V-I-C-T-O-R-Y), and so by necessity cheerleaders learn to spell.  Sometimes...

Kelly Jeck was only an 8th grade student when I left Kissimmee in March of 2000, which meant she had only been a part of our student ministry for less than 2 years (I want to give a shout out to Dwight Oakes, who followed me at FUMC-K and is still there today!  He has been a wonderful influence on a decade's worth of students.).  In the group picture on the left, she is the young lady in the crimson Florida State sweatshirt.  She has taken much abuse for that sweatshirt, as she turned out to be a University of Florida student when the time came.  My earliest memory of Kelly was that when she arrived in The Attic at FUMC-K, she came bouncing in.  When she left, she went bouncing out.  And the entire time she was there, she never quit bouncing!  I don't really remember if Kelly was actually a cheerleader or if she just aspired to be one, but I do remember that she often did cheers for us.  I do remember her as this incredible force of energy who always lit up the room.  If you came to our group hoping to just sit on the sidelines and not interact with anyone, and Kelly was there- then you were out of luck.  Kelly welcomed everyone.  She and her friends were loud, crazy and great fun to be around.  I hated leaving them behind.

But Kelly had a spelling problem.  One day, for reasons I have long since forgotten, she was singing the Oscar Mayer Bologna Song (see video at bottom if you don't know it).  In the song, a small boy spells out the word bologna, and Kelly did a great version of it.  The problem was, when Kelly sang it she spelled it "B-A-L-O-G-N-A."  When I corrected her spelling, I was told I was wrong.  I explained to her that I was pretty confident that I was right, and she again told me I was wrong.  She has firmly maintained that conviction for the past 11 years or so.  Just last week I was informed on her blog that it was still spelled with an "A."  After all of this time I suppose we just have to agree to disagree.  But she is right about one spelling item- you do have to be cool to understand why the word "youth" is often spelled UTH...

After my departure Kelly continued to be a leader in the student ministries of FUMC-K.  At one point several years ago we reconnected with some wonderful online conversations about faith, and she was working to organize a reunion of the old gang- but then I messed the whole thing up with my actions, and her work was wasted.  For that I am deeply sorry.  Kelly is getting married soon, is a successful business person in Kissimmee, and is once again active at FUMC-K.  I have no doubt she can still light up the room, because she is a "character" who brings out the best in everyone.  Just don't ask her to spell...