KILGOROUND

CONGRATULATIONS TO A PAIR OF FORMER KILGORE COLLEGE football standouts — Ricardo Colclough and Robbie Tobeck — who will be on opposing sidelines for next weekend’s Super Bowl XL. Colclough’s Pittsburgh Steelers and Tobeck’s Seattle Seahawks meet in Detroit in the biggest football game of the year next Sunday.

See more on the former KC standouts in sports today on page 8.

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ALSO, CONGRATS TO THE folks with the Kilgore High School soccer booster club that planned last night’s rent-a-player banquet. It’s the biggest fundraiser of the year for the two KHS soccer teams, and according to booster president John Kulak, the event was a success, with quite a turnout.

The boys soccer team is home tonight, facing Athens, with junior varsity beginning at 5:30 (varsity after).

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IT, the Kilgore College Runnin’ Rangers basketball team got a big win Saturday in Athens over Trinity Valley Community College, and the Rangers will be back home Wednesday night in a solo shot against Navarro, with the tipoff slated for 7 p.m. The game’s on the radio (on the college’s station, KTPB 88.7-FM), but I’m sure coach Scott Schumacher and his team would appreciate the support. I know I’d like to see a lot of folks fill Masters Gymnasium. It improves the atmosphere so much when there’s a loud crowd.

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FRIDAY IS THE DEADLINE FOR nominations for this year’s Kilgore Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year award.

The award will be presented, as always, at the annual chamber banquet, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 16.

Nominees should be local civic or business leaders and the award is based on the individual’s activities for the last five years (nominees must have been Kilgore residents for the last five years).

According to chamber guidelines, nominees can be male or female whose “unselfish service has furthered the civic and business welfare of Kilgore.”

Posthumous nominees are welcome.

To make a nomination, write a letter explaining why that person deserves the award and send it (or bring it) to the chamber of commerce office on Kilgore Street.

Gore Kemp was last year’s winner.

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THE FIRST Captain’s meeting for the 2006 Relay for Life was held Monday night at Ana-Lab (I heard from a little birdie) and thus far, with about three months to go, there are 25 teams already signed up for the American Cancer Society fund raiser. The board and chairman Jerry Camp are hoping for 50-plus teams by the time the Relay gets here in April.

About 40 team captains, board members and returning patrons showed up for the meeting Monday evening, anxious to help Kilgore go over the $100,000 mark in donations. The city fell just short of the mark last year as rain drenched the Relay and cold temperatures had people feeling like December instead of the end of April. The board hopes this year the rain will stay away, the temperatures will be a bit more balmy and the crowds will be twice as high for the fund raiser.

Any group who wants to be involved in Relay can contact Jackie Fout at Kilgore College. She is serving as team coordinator for the second year and has done an excellent job of recruiting teams from civic organizations, service organizations, churches, the college, schools and large and small businesses.

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IT’S TIME AGAIN FOR the Job Shadow program, a program (for students at Maude Laird Middle School here in Kilgore) that allows participating students to name a career they might like to pursue, then “shadow” or spend some time with someone in the community that matches that career.

They’re always needing career people that are willing to be shadowed. If you’d like to volunteer, give Darla Williams a call at MLMS at (903) 984-5072.

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IF YOU’D LIKE TO nominate someone to be the Wall of Honor inductee at the Kilgore High School football banquet, you’d better get that pen on the paper — the deadline for nominations is tomorrow.

The Wall of Honor is something done each year at the football banquet — nominees should be former Kilgore athletes, coaches, teachers, administrators or anyone whose contributions to the KHS athletic department have proved of great measure.

Send a letter telling why your nominee should be this year’s Wall of Honor inductee to Gary Blanks, P.O. Box 1341, Kilgore, TX 75662.

The banquet is scheduled once again to be at the Devall Student Center on the Kilgore College campus. It’s going to be Monday, Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m.

If they’ll allow me about two minutes, I plan to present the Kilgore News Herald’s football player of the year award at that banquet, as well.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TODAY TO Mrs. C.C. Hensley, Jr., Bert KinKaid, Tom McDonald, Lewes I Edwards, Jr., Curtis Wayne Howard, L.G. Morgan, Mrs. James Harvey, Al Riddlesperger, Patricia Rossum Hamilton, Russell Barnhill, Adonnis Centers, Jerome M. Towns III, Lois Johnson, Barry Stone, Amy Dorsey, Marilyn Applegate, Iva Van Meter, Kim Etheridge, Dee Samford.

CELEBRATING WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES today are Joe and Peggy Welch, Randy and Dee Williams, Eric and Gina Honzell.