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Shipshewana’s Doris Davis poses with a few of her favorite Chicago Cubs treasures: a Cubs T-shirt, a Ryne Sandberg life-sized cutout and a baseball bat autographed by former Cubs catcher Jody Davis. Doris, who turned 98 this summer, has been a lifelong Cubs fan.
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PATRICK REDMOND
Shipshe woman, 98, keeps cheering for her team SHIPSHEWANA — Doris Davis is a big Cubs fan. Davis, 98, of Shipshewana, saw her first game in 1926 at age 11. While she doesn’t recall all of the details of that game, she does remember the experience. “I was sitting out in right field,” Davis said. “Oh, I was excited.” Turns out being a die-hard Cubs fan came naturally in the Davis household. “My dad was a Cubs fan, and we used to go up to Chicago every summer a couple times,” she said. “Load up the kids in the back seat and mother and dad in the front seat, and away we’d go.” Her mother, Ida, knew nothing about the Cubs when she first met and then later married Niles Davis, Doris’ father. Ida eventually became as big a Cubs fan as anyone in the family, spending part of her honeymoon in Chicago watching a Cubs game. Baseball was a summer centerpiece of the Davis household when Doris was growing up. She figured out how to use the family’s checkerboard to visually chart the games she’d listen to on the radio. “I had the checkerboard, and I had the gum labels — I had to
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cut the edge off gum envelopes because we didn’t have Scotch tape at that time — to name all the players, and I had to move them around on the checkerboard,” she explained. “I had the checkerboard for the bases and the outfield. And I would just move them around as they got their singles or their home runs, or put them back in the dugout if they struck out.” A good student, Doris went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and work toward her master’s. She eventually settled into a teaching career, like her father, first teaching high school and eventually spending 25 years teaching at the University of Wisconsin at Stephens Point. She retired in 1977. It was after she retired that Doris kicked her love of the Cubs up another gear. She would take in at least 30 games each summer in Chicago, catching the South Shore into the city and then riding the El train to Wrigley Field. “I would go up so often that the
PH to mark 50th anniversary
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School district gathers mementos for celebration
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conductor on the train would know who I was and what I was doing,” Doris said. “Some of the people on the train would ask him how to get to Wrigley Field, and he (the conductor) would say, ‘Just go with this lady, she goes all the time.’ So I had a whole flock of them, that I was showing how to get to Wrigley Field.” Doris also began spending each spring of her retirement in Mesa, Ariz., taking in all the Cubs spring training games. She got to know the team so well that some friendships with players bloomed. Doris even baby-sat some of their children. “Jody Davis is my very favorite of all time. Everybody said I chose him because of his name, but it took me two days to find out who he was when I was at spring training. I liked the way he acted,” Davis said. Doris used to drive her own car to Arizona each spring. A few years ago, her family, worried about her making that long drive from Indiana to Arizona alone, finally convinced her to fly to Arizona instead. “The last two years I stayed home from spring training because you can see them on TV,” Doris said. “It’s simpler.”
Doris Davis talks more about growing up as a Cubs fan and shows some of her memorabilia in video at kpcnews.com. Scan the QR code to watch it on your tablet or smartphone.
BY PATRICK REDMOND predmond@kpcmedia.com
Doubts linger BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. government insists it has the intelligence to prove it, but the public has yet to see a single piece of concrete evidence produced by U.S. intelligence — no satellite imagery, no transcripts of Syrian military communications — connecting the government of President Bashar Assad to the alleged chemical weapons attack last month that killed hundreds of people. In its absence, Damascus and its ally Russia have aggressively pushed another scenario: that rebels carried out the Aug. 21 chemical attack. Neither has produced evidence for that case, either. That’s left more questions than answers as the U.S. threatens a possible military strike. The early morning assault in a rebel-held Damascus suburb known as Ghouta was said to be the deadliest chemical weapons attack in Syria’s 2½-year civil war. Survivors’ accounts, photographs of many of the dead wrapped peacefully in white sheets and dozens of videos showing victims in spasms and gasping for breath shocked the world and moved President Barack Obama to call for action because the use of chemical weapons crossed the red line he had drawn a year earlier. Yet one week after Secretary of State John Kerry outlined the case against Assad, Americans — at least those without access to classified reports — haven’t seen a shred of his proof. There is open-source evidence that provides clues about the attack, including videos of fragments from the rockets that analysts believe were likely used. U.S. officials on Saturday released a compilation of videos showing victims, including children, exhibiting what appear to be symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. Some experts think the size of the strike, and the amount of toxic chemicals that appear to have been delivered, make it doubtful that the rebels could have carried it out. What’s missing from the public record is direct proof, rather than
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More parents opting children out of standardized tests DELAWARE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — While his eighth-grade classmates took state standardized tests this spring, Tucker Richardson woke up late and played basketball in his Delaware Township driveway. Tucker’s parents, Wendy and Will, are part of a small but growing number of parents nationwide who are ensuring their children do not participate in standardized testing. They are opposed to the practice for myriad reasons, including the stress they believe it brings on young students, discomfort with tests being used to gauge teacher performance, fear that corporate influence is overriding education and concern that test prep is narrowing curricula down to the minimum needed to pass an exam. “I’m just opposed to the way high-stakes testing is being used to evaluate teachers, the way it’s being used to define what’s happening in classrooms,” said Will Richardson, an educational consultant and former teacher. “These tests are not meant to evaluate teachers. They’re meant to find out what kids know.” The opt-out movement, as it is called, is small but growing. It has been brewing for several years via word of mouth and social media, especially through Facebook. The “Long Island opt-out info” Facebook page has more than 9,200 members, many of them rallying at a Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., high school last month after a group of principals called this year’s state tests — and their low scores — a “debacle.”
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PATRICK REDMOND
Prairie Heights High School students check out some borrowed items showing the school’s 50-year anniversary, including letter jackets from the now defunct Orland, Salem and Stroh schools. The three schools were part of those that consolidated to form Prairie Heights. The students include, from left, Quinn Davis, junior; Thomas Willett, senior and Brandy Low, sophomore.
BRUSHY PRAIRIE — The Prairie Heights School Corp. is looking for historical items telling the story of its storied 50 years in education as a community center. This year marks the corporation’s 50th anniversary and Prairie Heights Superintendent Alan Middleton said the public’s help is sought in sharing historical items. “It’s a celebration of 50 years. We want to show kids the history from 1963-65,” he said. Over the years, the corporation was formed with the consolidation of country schools in Orland, Flint, Salem and Mongo in 1963. While those four schools are gone, Middleton said the look back through history causes a reflection on what was and how it came to be. During that time, Middleton said the corporation has long been characterized by being close knit with an emphasis on agriculture. “Agriculture has always been our strong point. We have the largest school farm east of the Mississippi” River, he said. “There’s been excellent leadership and an opportunity for kids. Agriculture was the vocation.” In addition, he noted the growth of the
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award-winning Prairie Heights High School theatre department. Middleton said the anniversary has nothing to do with his retirement in heading the corporation, which will come at the end of the current academic year. Neither are related. “We need to step back. Our goal is to put up pictures. If there’s any pictures of construction — that’d be great,” he said. Middleton said the gathering of the corporation’s history is rather interesting, as he and his staff don’t know what will be brought in. “We had someone come in the other day with a Salem letter jacket,” he said. “We got a yearbook.” Those who would like to lend any mementos of Prairie Heights’ history for the anniversary are asked to call Middleton at 351-3214. Items may also be brought to the administration office, 305 S. C.R. 1150E, for loan. Middleton said copies of photos from originals can be made at the office. Plans are being finalized to further celebrate the corporation’s history. Once those are finalized, the details will be announced. “There will be a night we’ll use to spearhead it,” Middleton said. “The goal is to get artifacts on display.”
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