It’s a good day to dwell on fearless acts

Yesterday, a Facebook friend posted one of those rhetorical questions: “What’s the most fearless thing you’ve ever done?”
I’d just come from the noon meeting of the Lima Exchange Club. The lunch usually includes a guest speaker, and this week was a special treat: Marjorie Bryan.

I met Bryan in June at the Allen County Airport, when she went skydiving for the first time. I should mention Bryan is 83 years old, she has a slew of great-grandchildren and even two great-great-grandchildren.

Tom Harrison: It’s a good day to dwell on fearless acts - LimaOhio.com: Columns

Military moms to hold national gathering | Cincinnati

Military moms to hold national gathering | Cincinnati - WLWT Home

Blue Star jumpers calm on eve of parachute debut

 

Blue Star Mothers Marjorie Bryan (left) and Marianna Sherman (center) greet Sara Rickhard (second to left), Linda Humphrey (second to right) and Virginia Clark (right) at the fish fry fundraiser at the American Legion. Bryan and Sherman are skydiving Saturday morning to raise money for charity. Lindsay Brown/Lima News.


LIMA — For a couple of octogenarians about to take a two-mile plunge from an airplane, Marjorie Bryan and Marianna Sherman seemed remarkably calm Friday evening.
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Blue Star Moms triumph in parachute plunge

LIMA — Retired Sgt. 1st Class Michael “Big Mike” Elliott waited patiently on the tarmac Saturday afternoon while Marjorie Bryan posed with her longtime friend, Marianna Sherman, for a crowd of friends and relatives snapping a few last photos.

Then in a loud voice, Elliot called out the all-important question:

“Well, Margie, are you ready to skin this cat?”

A brief plane ride later, Elliott was guiding Bryan, an 83-year-old Blue Star Mother from Lima, back to earth in a tandem parachute jump from more than 10,000 feet up.

About an hour later, Sherman, 82, of Kenton, completed her own jump.

The great-grandmothers parachuted Saturday at Allen County Airport to raise funds for the local Blue Star Mothers chapter and its Lima Veterans Food Pantry. They jumped in tandem with Elliott and a team of six other members of the Ranger Group, a band of retired Army Ranger paratroopers with loads of training and experience.
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Armed Forces Day gathering here Saturday

The Guernsey County Veterans Council will host the fifth annual Armed Forces Day in Guernsey County on Saturday. The event will be in the Veterans Section of Northwood Cemetery in Cambridge at 9:30 a.m. (Enter the cemetery by the 10th Street gate.) The program will consist of some brief remarks, a prayer by Chaplain Gregory Black, U.S. Army (Ret.), recognition of our Blue Star Mothers, the firing of a three-round volley rifle salute and conclude with the playing of Taps. Everyone is invited.
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Lima octogenarians will take a leap for Blue Star Mothers fundraiser

LIMA — The typical octogenarian does everything she can to avoid a fall. That said, there's nothing typical about Marjorie Bryan and Marianna Sherman.

The two women, ages 83 and 82, respectively, have volunteered to take a fall to help out the local Blue Star Mothers. And it's not just any fall, it's a drop from a few hundred feet, out of the back of a plane, strapped to a U.S. Army Ranger....

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Sonshine Boxes to be packed March 30; donate items today!

KIMBOLTON -- Sonshine Box Organization is sending some "sonshine" to our military serving overseas. The next assembly of boxes is scheduled Saturday, March 31 at 9 a.m. at the home of Mark and Mona Stoffer.

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Fairfield County students donate time, money, goods

The students also collected a number of items in coordination with Blue Star Mothers for care packages for troops stationed overseas. Fifth grade students and their adviser Molly Saheli collected food for local pantries every morning as parents dropped ...  more

Mourners gather to honor Raymond Border at funeral

10TV: Procession for Raymond Border: Coshocton County said goodbye Thursday to Chief Petty Officer Raymond Border, who was killed last month while serving with the U.S. Navy in Afghanistan.

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 As mourners poured into the cemetery, the Coshocton County Blue Star Mothers handed out American flags, which many then took and lined the roadways of the cemetery, waving the flags as the hearse carrying Border to his final resting place silently drove by.