Coverage of the Panthers
Siloam Springs is very lucky to have a person like Graham Thomas living in the community. He has covered the SSHS football team with heart and passion in his journalism work since long before I had the privilege of joining the school district and meeting him.
The student-athletes have been fighting an uphill battle since the AAA reclassification fiasco that demands extreme miles of travel and long hours to play schools more than double the enrollment size of SSHS. Do the players give up? If you go on Friday nights you will see them running on the field with the belief and perseverance that they can and will win! Graham has helped promote that character in these kids by featuring the stories, events, and the extraordinary in his articles. These kids deserve better. Hopefully, Superintendent Ken Ramey will have success soon in remedying that outlandish decision and they will have better.
I had the honor of addressing the team this year before the first game to talk about how you achieve success. After suffering a hemorrhagic stroke in March, I am battling my own personal battle trying to re-enter the world of everyday normalcy after being paralyzed and seven months of rehabilitation with even more to go in the future. Graham's article (on Sept. 6) gave me additional inspiration for which I am eternally grateful. As I told the team, if you work as hard as you possibly can, never give up, and keep your belief on the goals, it can and will happen. Come out on Friday nights and see it happen to these fine students! GO PANTHERS!
Siloam Springs is a special place in America to live and people like Graham Thomas make it even better. KUDOS to Graham for his work.
Marc Jones
Siloam Springs football coach
Editorial on 09/20/2017