Coach Kremer - RIP - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Fish Report readers,

Sad to report that longtime Ft. Loramie basketball coach, John Kremer passed away recently. He was my coach in high school and this previous blog from 2015 is being republished in his memory.
Click here for his obituary. May he rest in peace,
Dave
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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

High School Basketball Memories - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

High School Basketball Memories

With the high school basketball season beginning, the memories of my old coach John Kremer always come to the forefront. He celebrated his 90th birthday earlier this year, and in 2009, was an inaugural inductee into the Ft. Loramie Wall of Honor. The photo of Coach at the induction ceremony is shown. On the occasion of his 90th birthday, I sent him a card and a brief note of thanks, which has been excerpted below: 

Coach Kremer,

Congratulations and happy birthday on reaching the wonderful milestone of 90 years. The news about your upcoming birthday sure brought back many wonderful memories about Ft. Loramie sports and your many contributions that made those recollections so special.

For example, Ft. Loramie’s basketball program was said to have started in 1935; however, I recall my dad telling abut playing other teams from around the area in about 1930. They played in the upper level of Brucken’s Café and those initial games eventually led to the creation of Ft. Loramie’s basketball program, the Shelby County League and the construction of the gym as part of the now-demo’ed old high school building. After a recent meal at Brucken’s, my brother and I, along with our sons, climbed up to the Brucken’s upper level to see the setting for ourselves and to share the story with our sons. There were a lot of cracker box gyms prevalent back in the day, but upstairs at Brucken’s literally takes the cake!

Playing basketball for you in 1964-66 was really something special. You molded me, a tall, skinny, clumsy kid, into a decent basketball player. I recall you giving me a pair of weighted shoe inserts and ankle straps for use during the offseason, and you challenged me to be the first player from Loramie to dunk the ball. It worked! I could easily dunk during warm-ups, but the only opportunity I had during a game once was on a breakaway, but lo and behold I travelled!! The weights also helped my rebounding in that I held the school record for a number of years.  However, that too is imperfect, as years later, a fellow player, who as a benchwarmer kept the statistics, told me that he gave me a rebound every time I touched the ball from a missed shot, whether I controlled the rebound or not. Needless to say, I was glad when my flawed record was finally broken years later.

Enjoy your special day, as the tributes coming your way are so deserved. Thank you for everything you’ve done on behalf of all Loramie High grads over the course of your storied career.

~~~~~~~~~

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Your 2022 Raiders and Redskins baseball preview..

If the baseball gods allow Russia at Ft. Loramie to open the 2022 schedule on Monday, it's fitting that these two tradition-rich programs give fans their first look of what could be another special season for both schools. The Redskins have a centerfield banner under their scoreboard that proudly reminds folks of their three state titles in 2007, 2010 and 2018. For the Raiders, last year they celebrated their 50th anniversary of Shelby County's first state championship in 1971. You can bet both teams believe this year they have the talent to be playing on June 11th at Canal Park in Akron. But as Yogi Berra once said, "in baseball, you don't know nothing".

Russia's 2021 team met and posed with the state champs from 1971 (Picture by Cindy Saunders)

Ft. Loramie's fifth-year head coach and 1989 alum Jeff Sanders (79-13) might have a lot to figure out the early part of his schedule. Graduated from last year's 27-5 team are six of nine Redskin starters that appeared in the state semi-final game, including All-SCAL 1st-team honorees Jake Sanders, Darren Hoying and Player of the Year Mack Fortman. Returning though are two 2nd-team honorees, beginning with senior pitcher Derek Meyer who got the win against Russia in last year's regional championship 7-1, when the southpaw came on in relief and threw 5-1/3 innings of no-run, two-hit ball. Also, back is Evan Eilerman, an experienced and rangy shortstop that batted over .400 as the fifth batter in the lineup. 

But in case you're thinking this might be a "rebuilding year" for Ft. Loramie, Coach Sanders has a staff that began preparing for this situation long ago. Participation in baseball is not an issue for the Redskins and to make sure the 2022 roster spots were earned, the 2021 program featured two JV teams that no doubt made everyone better. Then, when last summer rolled around and Ft. Loramie's ACME team got into the postseason, Sanders took time to coach his future stars when he just as easily could have been enjoying the off-season elsewhere. 

Ft. Loramie's boys of summer learned the expectations of playing for Coach Sanders

These next few months you'll certainly read about the successes of Derek Meyer and Evan Eilerman, but look forward to also seeing names like Clint Hilgefort, Owen Pleiman, Ty Ruhenkamp and Taran Fleckenstein just to name a few. When the Ohio High School Baseball Coaches Association pre-season poll came out a week ago, Ft. Loramie was ranked #7. By the end of May, expect the Redskins to be higher than that.

Your 2022 Ft. Loramie Redskins

Russia's 2021 might have surprised a lot of area baseball folks, except for Raiders head coach and 1997 alum Kevin Phlipot, now beginning his seventh season with 122 career victories. Among the highlights were a school record 26 wins and an appearance in the regional championship. Not bad for a team that included one senior starter and an early record of 2-3. Credit to Phlipot, who the year before took it upon himself to organize and coach 29 games with the same boys in June, July and August when Ohio cancelled spring baseball and many programs cancelled summer baseball too due to COVID-19. While some baseball experts last year thought Russia's success might be a year away yet, the Raiders won't surprise anyone with their talent in 2022.

The biggest hole in the lineup when the season starts comes from the graduation of 2nd-baseman Drew Sherman, who led the team with a .450 batting average. However, top returnees include a couple senior stars in team MVP and speedy catcher Aiden Shappie, along with Walsh University bound flamethrower Grant Saunders, who recorded 115 strikeouts last year and just missed 2019 alum Daniel Kearns single season record of 125.  

Russia returns their entire pitching staff, including Grant Saunders who was 8-2 last season

The Raiders also have a trio of juniors that earned All-SCAL recognition last year starting with 1st-team honoree Xavier Phlipot, a crafty 8-win pitcher, longtime shortstop and a solid batter that rarely strikes out. Zane Shappie is a 2nd-team honoree that anchors the outfield in center and is a dynamo on the base paths with an on-base percentage over .500. Finally, Ross Fiessinger is an Honorable Mention pitcher that quietly recorded five W's highlighted by his win in the championship game of the St. Henry Invitational. Other returning starters include senior Jared Poling, as well as sophomores Brayden Monnin and Hayden Quinter.

Your 2022 Russia Raiders

It's polite to say the Redskins and Raiders are friendly rivals. While there's definitely a mutual respect between the two programs, the friendly adjective is debatable when both teams face off on the ball diamond. Fans will get the pleasure of two regular season games that are always crucial when it comes to the league battle. If we're lucky, we might also get another tournament matchup that typically turns into a classic talked about for years afterward. It's Russia vs Ft. Loramie. Enjoy!

Russia and Ft. Loramie always gets down and dirty in a fun way

250,000 Hits - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

250,000 Hits

Friday, the Fish Report Blog received its 250,000 hit. When checking early that morning, the counter was 9 short of the milestone, so I cheated by refreshing my browser until the counter showed the above screen shot. My first blog was in July of 2015, almost seven years ago. To date, 334 blogposts have been made with plenty of memories still churning for future posts. The feedback has been great from not only friends and family, but lots of people I do not know. Many thanks for all the positive comments. Most have an anecdote or two which the blog brought to mind that they shared. There are about 100 regular readers who have signed up for alerts to received the blog via email each Tuesday after it's published. If interested, feel free to sign up by clicking this link to send me your request.

Many readers have also commented about all the photos in the blog, wondering where I get them. Many are from family albums which my sister Lucy has archived over the years. She happily digs through them to find exactly the photo needed to make the blog hit home. Others sources are of course the internet, but one of the best sources is the Community Post accessible via the Minster Historical Society. I can pick a random issue from the archives and be reminded of some tidbit from my past to write about accompanied by the photo from the Post that spurred the idea.

Two local sport reporters, Dave Ross from the Sidney Daily News and Sonny Fulks from Press Pros, always have interesting articles about both current and past sporting events that also generate many blog ideas. Those guys are the best and also fantastic Fish Report supporters.

Fish Report founder, Craig Fiessinger, has been very supportive of my efforts over the course of those 7 blog years. Readers from around Russia and the surrounding communities are very fortunate to have such a fine on-line sports and information source, but equally as important is the linkage the site provides for those like me who no longer live in the area but still want to stay connected. Here’s a wonderful 2008 SDN article about Craig and the Fish Report:

By the way, a get-well shout out to Craig’s mother Linda, my high school classmate, who has been ill.

All 334 blog posts are archived on the site and are searchable at the bottom of each blog. Craig is amazing at designing the website and making access so seamless and intuitive. He's not only an outstanding IT expert and talented broadcaster, but also a skill businessman with Superior Aluminum in Russia. He’s quite a marketer as well given the high quality sponsors supporting his website and sports broadcasts.

Thanks for all the support, Craig! Much appreciated.

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Joan Deere - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Joan Deere

My cousin Joan lives in Minster with her husband Bob and they have a large yard, so one spring Bob bought a new garden tractor. Here’s Joan's story about the purchase: "Bob told me this was my Mother's Day present to go along with the nice 4 HP Craftsman lawn edger he gave me for my birthday. Ha Ha. Isn’t he romantic? Bob said when we got it, he wanted me to put on a pair of shorts, high heels, and a nice wide brimmed white sun hat, sit on the tractor and he’d take a picture and send it to John Deere for advertisement for them! Bob teased me about having a Joan Deere tractor. About a year and a half later I was in the garage, glanced over at the tractor, and saw that it did indeed say Joan Deere. I went in the house and asked him when he did that. Did what? Paint Joan Deere on the tractor. About a year and a half ago. Bob had taken a Sharpie pen and curved a line over the H making it an A. So I’m not too observant, as it is against the wall right in front of where he parks his car.

Joan keeps all the members of the Hoying clan, my Mother’s family, up to date on birthdays, anniversaries and other such family matters. She’s great at communicating all kinds of interesting tidbits about family members as well as organizing numerous family events and sending out holiday greetings. For example, several times a year, the “girl cousins” get together for lunch and a photo of the group is always shared with everyone on her distribution. An example is shown above. Joan is standing on the far right.

Being of German descent and a life-long Minster native, Joan loves the annual Oktoberfest each fall, dressing in the native folk garb called a dirndl while she serves beer to the customers.

But no doubt Joan is most noteworthy for helping to keep the annual Hoying reunion tradition alive and well. She and Bob are pictured on the far left of this recent reunion photo below. The banner honoring our grandparents is proudly hung at every reunion. Preceding the reunion is always a 9 hole golf scramble at Arrowhead GC. In recognizing Joan for being the voice of the Hoying family, we always let her team win!

My very first blog written back in July of 2015 was about the Hoying reunion. And no surprise, Joan is sitting front and center in this 1948 reunion photo and God only knows where she is in this 1997 photo with the family home built in 1886 shown in the background.

It was a sad day just before Christmas in 2009 when Joan reported to the family that the old family farm house had caught fire and was totally destroyed. Fortunately no one was hurt and the home was rebuilt by the following Christmas.

Joan enjoys sharing the interesting puns on the Indian Hills, Colorado Community Center billboard. Some of her favorites are shown below.

Updates on cousin Scott Hoying, a singer in the a cappella group Pentatonix, are also provided regularly by Joan. Scott is the tall guy pictured below and is the grandson of my uncle Tony whom I’ve written about in past blogs.

My contributions to Joan’s regular messages are providing updates about another cousin Jared Hoying’s highlights over the course of his professional baseball career. Hope my job is not over just yet, now that the MLB strike is settled and if Jared hopefully gets picked up by a team!

Thanks, Joan for keeping everybody in the loop about family matters. It’s always interesting and much appreciated.

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Blues Brothers - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Blues Brothers

One of my favorite movies of all time is the 1980 flick entitled the Blues Brothers, staring John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd. Another favorite documented in this previous blogpost is Animal House, also featuring Belushi. No doubt you appreciate my taste in movies, unlike my wife, as every time one or the other turns up while channel surfing, I have to watch the show, to her perpetual chagrin!

Belushi was on my radar before the Blues Brothers, since Animal House preceded it in 1978, and he was on Saturday Night Live as well. But my true appreciation for his talent came about quite by accident, as my wife and I were spending a long weekend in Chicago back in the summer of 1980. We stayed in a downtown hotel on the city’s so-called Magnificent Mile close to the many shops that lined the avenue, which my wife definitely wanted to peruse. Fortunately next to the hotel was a theater that was premiering The Blues Brothers, as it was filmed right there in Chicago. So with time to kill, I took in the show.

The theater was adjacent to Water Tower Place and early in the movie, the two brothers in their legendary Bluesmobile, a battered ’74 Dodge former cop car, were driving through downtown Chicago right past the theater where I was watching the show after Elwood (Ackroyd) had picked up his paroled "blood brother" Jake (Belushi) from Joliet prison.

The brothers were on a ‘Mission from God” to save the Catholic orphanage where they had lived as kids. To raise some money for the orphanage’s delinquent property taxes, they decided to get their old R&B band together for a final gig to pay the taxes and avoid closure.

Between the unforgetable music and the notorious chase scenes, the entertainment was non-stop. One especially memorable sequence occurred when the brothers got picked up for speeding and escaped by crashing through a mall. 105 cars were destroyed and the mall demolished. Hilarious! Recognize the background music during the chase, Buckeye fans? Now you know the origin!

One of my favorite scenes is when Elwood connects up with a cute girl in a Jaguar E Type played by Twiggy who briefly distracts him from his "Mission from God”.

Speaking of origins, the Blue Brothers actually appeared first in this 1976 SNL skit as the King Bee Band.

My BB memories are resurrected each August during the annual Woodward Dream Cruise when there’s always a Bluesmobile replica roaming Woodward, with oversized speakers blaring an invite to the Blues Brothers gig!

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My First Boss - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

My First Boss

Sadly, my first boss, Don Ruhenkamp, recently passed away. Here’s his obituary. Don ran the Ruhenkamp Excavating Service, taking over during the 1960’s for his father Clem, who founded the business in 1928. Clem is pictured below in this 1940 photo wearing a suit, nothing like the cigar chomping old timer with the dirty wide-brimmed hat that I remember!

Don's son and son-in-law now run the three-generation business.

Don, like his father Clem, was a real character and a great boss. I can recall as a young kid in the 1950’s, Clem driving that ditcher back and forth in our fields on the family farm to lay clay tile for faster drainage. Don, still in high school, was his right hand man handling all the tile, laying them behind the ditcher. Don also closed up the ditches after all the tile were laid. It was quite an operation that intrigued me to no end, but my biggest fear was falling into the trench and getting covered up with dirt!

Don and old Clem were such personalities, the two would kid around with anybody and everybody they came across. And as Don's employer during high school, I was the target of many of his wisecracks. Of course, I provided plenty of fodder as a newbie on the crew. Here’s a past blog about one such escapade! My nickname for a while was Honey Dipper! Don had so many other talents as well; for example, he was a great horseshoe player and could throw ringers about 50% of the time. And what a softball player he was, hitting the long ball and speeding around the bases. Don loved sports of all kind and was an avid supporter of all Ft. Loramie High School sports.

For example, Don established the Loramie Field Crew, a group of volunteers and fans pictured above who maintained the football field. Don is front and center in the black shirt & hat, front row.

And he was a founding “gang member” as described in this blurb from the Loramie Historical Society:

The Owl Gang, by Ed Lachey

The Owl Gang was a group of young men in Fort Loramie, Ohio, who pretty much ran around together. They had common interest and they decided to build a meeting place, so they took it upon themselves to build a shack, a small building along the Miami-Erie Canal.

The first shack was probably about ten by ten, not too large, well built by these young men. So then with the help of some parents, I think mostly Edison Maurer, they decided to build a larger shack, about twelve by twenty-four; they had a cement floor and foundation and even had a drain which could be used when it was required to clean the floor. Also had a chimney which I think was mostly constructed by Jim Quinlin as he worked for Freytag’s as a helper. The building was more than ample to just relax and have fun. It seems they had a pot belly stove to heat the shack in colder weather., each member had their own locker which housed some of their private belongings. Having been there many times myself it was more than ample for playing cards, frying fish, rabbits, and perhaps a pheasant or two, which I think was prepared on a camping stove, and perhaps having some form of liquid refreshments.

One of the rules was no women allowed.

Dues were collected from each member, and it was hard to crack the membership if you were not an original member, although many friends did come for the parties.The original members were Tom and Ralph Gaier, Rich Bollheimer, Paul Maurer, John Lachey, Don and Leo Wendeln, Fred Drees and Don Ruhenkamp.

Ralph Gaier was President, and they had meetings such as how to make the mud alley easier to travel, so they decided to use cinders which were free for the hauling, and one fellow who wanted to become a member volunteered to use his father’s livestock truck to haul cinders. Not sure even after he did this if he qualified to be a member, as I say it was hard to crack the membership, but the cinders did help.

Members of this group also played High School basketball, until one night when going to the shack after basketball practice one of the member’s father’s auto, a 1930 Model A, was overloaded and became top heavy and rolled over on its side. All members escaped, but it happened at wrong time as the High School Basketball coach, think it was Mr. Westfall, did not like what he had seen, and dismissed the entire group from his team, did not make a winning season for him as he lost many good ball players.

This group of men all were productive citizens in their adult life and many could be considered role models for the younger folks. At this time May 2, 2013 all these fellows would be nearing the age of 80 years old. I am sure they could tell some really good stories. At this time I think the living members still remaining are Ralph Gaier, Rich Bollheimer, Paul Maurer, Don Ruhenkamp and Fred Drees.

Postscript, before Covid, the annual White Oak Jamboree was held on the site of the gang’s original shack! Women were very much welcome!

Don also served as long time Assistant Chief for the Ft. Loramie Fire Department, serving the needs of area citizens for over 30 years. Here’s a department photo from 1984. Don is on the far left, next to Chief Morrie Frey, the town barber.

Don also loved golf and served as the starter at Minster’s Arrowhead golf course. I always enjoyed reminiscing with him before golfing the course whenever visiting the area.

Rest in peace, my friend! Thanks for the lifelong lessons, your sense of humor and multitude of community services. Ft. Loramie is a much better place because of you.

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