By Lou Slaces, Running Reporter and Ace Investigative Journalist

    Old Lou wishes to inform the membership that he recently found that 2 Five Hundred Dollar checks from the club accounts have been sent far away from Evansville to benefit religious institutions !  Not only that, Lou has uncovered the clever scheme to camouflage this action by the Board of Directors. 
   
It seems that the Board claims that a Five Hundred Dollar check heading for Notre Dame University has been  disguised as a Scholarship to someone called “Will Sievern”, who is allegedly a Memorial High School graduate.  Lou has looked at Will’s “application” and clearly, this guy is too good to be true.  Among the outrageous accolades he claims, he was selected as one of six male National Finalists (out of 5400 outstanding kids) as a Wendy’s High School Heisman  Award Recipient—an award that recognizes achievements in academics, athletics, leadership and community service.  Will claims to be an Eagle Scout and Senior Patrol Leader, 4 year Student council member and Class Vice President, and to have received the Southwestern Indiana Arts Council “Young Artist of the Year “ award.  He graduates with a 3.92 GPA and was a National Merit Scholarship Commended Student.  He was Team Captain of the Cross Country team, winning 3 varsity letters there.  Somehow, he claims he had time to be President of the German Club and to participate on a recent Mission Trip with his church to assist families in need of home repairs in the Appalachian area.  Since it would clearly be incredibly difficult to put all of this together in one young man, Lou suspects he is a “made up” character used to siphon our runners’ funds to the Catholic church !

Bill Hussmann with Will Sievern

The other check is a Five Hundred Dollar check going to Brigham Young University in Utah, for crying out loud !  This check is made out to “Alisha Kuhlenhoelter” (obviously a made up last name).  Claiming to be a North High School graduate, this figment of someone’s imagination graduates near the top of her class, and participated in the North High School state champion “We the People” team that learns much about the United States Constitution and it’s government.  Alisha ran track for 4 years, and Cross country for 3, ending up as Team Captain and Kiwanis Award Winner.  She was active in student council at North and President of her church youth group.  Somehow she managed to be on the varsity basketball team  for three years as well, and received a third place award and the Jack Schriber Merit award in our local school corporation high school art show.  So , again, obviously, the Board has created a “persona” in an attempt to justify shipping money out of state for religious purposes.

Should these purported “recipients” actually exist, Lou would have to say they are outstanding young people who we are extremely proud of and proud to say “these are Evansville Runners”.  However, given how unlikely it is that such kids actually exist, Lou plans to attend the next Board meeting to expose this misappropriation of club funds.  Just think of how many packets of “Gu” the club could have purchased for us all with that kind of money !  I hope those of you who are as upset about this as I am will show up at the Board Meeting with me.  Till then, Old Lou says keep on running and remember that no matter how slow you are going, I am still behind you somewhere.