
Top of the Morning, June 12, 2025
Carrying on a generation-bonding tradition that started nearly a decade ago, the teens will be in charge of the bingo tent — drawing balls, calling out numbers, swapping out cards and making sure the older crowd behaves.
"I've got kids already asking me 'Can I be the one calling out 'Bingo!' " Tri-County coach TJ Blake said. "They're definitely into it."
The annual festival — known for its tractor pulls — runs Friday through Sunday in a tiny Douglas County village that is one of 13 towns that feed the Tri-County co-op. Bingo starts at 1 p.m. Saturday.
"It's an opportunity for our players to get out in the community and give back as a program," said Blake, a 2012 Oakland High grad. In his day, high schoolers volunteered at a horseshoe tournament. "And it allows the community to put a face to the name on the back of the jersey."
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


San Francisco Chronicle
3 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Australian Will Genia retires from rugby after a 110-test career that included 3 World Cups
SYDNEY (AP) — Three-time Rugby World Cup player and 110-test Australian veteran Will Genia announced his retirement from the sport on Thursday at the age of 37. Genia confirmed his retirement on his Instagram page, telling followers he will transition into the role of skills coach at Japanese rugby side Kintetsu with long-time teammate Quade Cooper. Genia will finish his career as the seventh most-capped Wallaby. In November 2018, he became the 10th Australian, and the second scrumhalf after George Gregan, to reach 100 tests when he ran out against England at Twickenham. He finishes his career with a Super Rugby title, a Tri-Nations title, a Rugby Championship title and a European Rugby Challenge title with Stade Français, as well as making the 2015 Rugby World Cup final. 'From walking in to Ballymore at the end of 2006 as a kid, to travelling the world chasing a ball, it has been more than I ever thought it would be, so much so that it feels like a dream is all it should be,' Genia wrote. Cooper was one of the first to pay credit to his long-time playing partner. 'What a ride my brother. Who would have guessed way back then,' Cooper responded on Genia's Instagram page. 'It's funny because we always seemed to find each other through changes in coaches (who I mostly clashed with) to countries, teams and now the other side. It's been a pleasure and grateful to have done it with you.' ___

Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
At 90, pianist Ran Blake has countless mentees - and an immeasurable legacy
To celebrate Blake's 10th decade, a few of his favorite mentees, including Dominique Eade and Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Ran gave me the freedom to find myself in jazz standards,' said Portuguese singer Sara Serpa, who studied with Blake at NEC and made an album, 'Camera Obscura,' with him in 2009. As a European, she said, she was leery of approaching 'this sacred American art form. Ran really gave me permission to find myself in the songs, to create my own stories.' Advertisement Before coming to NEC, where he ran the Department of Third Stream (named for Schuller's idea of a 'third stream' of music between jazz and classical), Blake befriended and studied with Oscar Peterson, Mal Waldron, Charles Mingus, and other jazz greats. On a video call from his Brookline apartment, Blake laughed as he mentioned all of the musicians who didn't 'get' his idiosyncratic style: 'JJ Johnson wasn't impressed. Ray Brown was very nice to me, but not impressed. Bob Brookmeyer hated me.' Advertisement But his reliance on his own instincts – eventually laid out in his philosophy, 'the primacy of the ear' – also won him countless admirers. 'Everyone I've met has a profound admiration for his sound,' said Serpa, who has a tradition of bringing her family to visit him each Thanksgiving, cooking for him. (She will perform with pianist Matt Mitchell at NEC on October 2.) 'He's just so original,' Serpa said. 'And it's hard to be original, to be different. And build a career mostly on solo records. That can get quite lonely, I think.' Blake's longtime NEC colleague Hankus Netsky, who chairs the department Blake once led (now called the Department of Contemporary Improvisation), explained the idea behind his friend's philosophy in an email: 'Take in a diverse diet of great music, learn it through detailed listening to the fine points of each artist's interpretation, and then use it as a springboard for your own creative musical imagination.' Through a faculty professional development program, Netsky said, Blake recently recorded a solo piano album called 'Voices,' honoring some of his favorite singers, among them Aretha Franklin, Edith Piaf, Mahalia Jackson, and Al Green. That's expected to come out in early 2026. Archivists also continue to release material from Blake's earliest collaboration, with the singer Jeanne Lee, whom he met while both were students at Bard College in the late 1950s. Their joint debut, 'The Newest Sound Around' (1961), remains one of his most notable releases. Advertisement Before taking over the new Third Stream department at NEC, Blake served for a few years as the school's community services director. They brought music programming to the public — to institutions including a retirement community and the prison then known as MCI-Walpole. They also ran night classes in ear training, studying artists from Messiaen and Mingus, to one of Blake's favorite jazz singers, Chris Connor. 'The whole semester cost $20,' Blake recalled. Those programs were especially meaningful to him, he said: 'It was very important to send music to where the people are and encourage them to play.' And not just for the students' own sake. The educators, Blake said, learned plenty from the students. It was an early lesson in a belief he still holds – that making music is really about a heightened ability to listen. RAN BLAKE'S 90TH CELEBRATION At the Square Root, 2 Corinth St., Boston, Sunday, Aug. 24, 4 p.m. Tickets available at the door. James Sullivan can be reached at jamesgsullivan@
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
30-year-old escape plan! Family's pet snapping turtle escapes from home
Hilarious footage from Yongsheng County, China, captured an escape that was 30 years in the making: a family's pet alligator snapping turtle made a break for freedom on August 6, straying into the road just outside the home. The family had raised the reptile for over 30 years after rescuing it from Chenghai Lake.