A Huge Honor for Lisa

Second Post of the Day 

A throwback post to August, 2025.

Lisa & Purdue's Golden Hammer Educator Event

Saturday was an exciting day for Lisa - she was selected and recognized as one of Purdue University's Golden Hammer Educators!

Needless to say, it was a very big honor! There was a brunch held with Purdue's First Lady, Dr. Kei Hui, and several Deans where the honorees were recognized, given tickets for the football game (and their guests, too), and an appearance on the Jumbotron during the game where the sold out stadium of 61,000 applauded her and the other recipients. 

A goodie bag full of lots of Purdue swag was given out during the brunch.

My degrees may be from Big Ten rival Illinois, but I'll wear a Purdue tee when they honor my daughter!

And I'll make sure everyone knows who I am related to!

Craig's degrees are from Purdue so his wardrobe is full of Purdue shirts.

He, too, made sure everyone knew who he was with!

This young girl attends the school where Lisa teaches. She was not one of Lisa's students, but she was so excited to see Lisa and kept coming over to talk to her. 

Dr. Kei Hui, First Lady of Purdue and an advocate of Education, spent the day with us. She was laughing here because of the sign behind her. 

She jokingly invited two of the Golden Hammer's sponsoring Deans to come up and cover it up so it "doesn't spoil everyone's photo opportunities."

Brunch over, the honorees went with the Deans and Dr. Kei to film their Jumbotron appearances to be played later during the game.

Craig and I had some time to wait, and as we walked around through the crowds, the Purdue Band came marching through and into the stadium. I happened to be seated in my walker right where they were marching and had a great view of the band.

If you watch to the end (it's 2:00 long) you will see this come through!

The World's Largest Drum! Not gonna lie - it's on my bucket list to drum it some day! I was SO close to it this afternoon!! 

So was Lisa! She was on the field with the drum - lucky girl!

Dr. Kei Hiu stayed with the honorees and was happy to take selfies with them. Here they are pre-game while filming their Jumbotron appearances.

And here it is! (1:10)

I did not stay for the game for a couple of reasons as my back was hurting (we'd taken two cars thinking that that might happen.) But the game was televised so I was able to watch from home.

A shot of the sold out stadium of 61,000 people with the Jumbotron in the end zone. (The domed building to the left is Mackey Arena, Purdue's basketball arena.)

Purdue won the game 0-28 which was icing on the cake of a wonderful day. (Can you see the drum down there?)

Congratulations, Lisa! You are an outstanding teacher and you have taught me new teaching skills when watching you. This honor was very well deserved and as Dr. Kei said in her remarks,

"Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions."

Amen to that!

Lisa & Purdue's Golden Hammer Educator Event

Second Post of the Day

Saturday was an exciting day for Lisa - she was selected and recognized as one of Purdue University's Golden Hammer Educators!

Needless to say, it was a very big honor! There was a brunch held with Purdue's First Lady, Dr. Kei Hui, and several Deans where the honorees were recognized, given tickets for the football game (and their guests, too), and an appearance on the Jumbotron during the game where the sold out stadium of 61,000 applauded her and the other recipients. 

A goodie bag full of lots of Purdue swag was given out during the brunch.

My degrees may be from Big Ten rival Illinois, but I'll wear a Purdue tee when they honor my daughter!

And I'll make sure everyone knows who I am related to!

Craig's degrees are from Purdue so his wardrobe is full of Purdue shirts.

He, too, made sure everyone knew who he was with!

This young girl attends the school where Lisa teaches. She was not one of Lisa's students, but she was so excited to see Lisa and kept coming over to talk to her. 

Dr. Kei Hui, First Lady of Purdue and an advocate of Education, spent the day with us. She was laughing here because of the sign behind her. 

She jokingly invited two of the Golden Hammer's sponsoring Deans to come up and cover it up so it "doesn't spoil everyone's photo opportunities."

Brunch over, the honorees went with the Deans and Dr. Kei to film their Jumbotron appearances to be played later during the game.

Craig and I had some time to wait, and as we walked around through the crowds, the Purdue Band came marching through and into the stadium. I happened to be seated in my walker right where they were marching and had a great view of the band.

If you watch to the end (it's 2:00 long) you will see this come through!

The World's Largest Drum! Not gonna lie - it's on my bucket list to drum it some day! I was SO close to it this afternoon!! 

So was Lisa! She was on the field with the drum - lucky girl!

Dr. Kei Hiu stayed with the honorees and was happy to take selfies with them. Here they are pre-game while filming their Jumbotron appearances.

And here it is! (1:10)

I did not stay for the game for a couple of reasons as my back was hurting (we'd taken two cars thinking that that might happen.) But the game was televised so I was able to watch from home.

A shot of the sold out stadium of 61,000 people with the Jumbotron in the end zone. (The domed building to the left is Mackey Arena, Purdue's basketball arena.)

Purdue won the game 0-28 which was icing on the cake of a wonderful day. (Can you see the drum down there?)

Congratulations, Lisa! You are an outstanding teacher and you have taught me new teaching skills when watching you. This honor was very well deserved and as Dr. Kei said in her remarks,

"Teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions."

Amen to that!

 

And one last video from the band coming through. (1:10)

The twirlers, cheerleaders, flag carriers, and more. (0:25)

Lisa Wins Purdue's Golden Hammer Award

Big day today!

Lisa is receiving Purdue University's Golden Hammer Award for Educators during halftime at the Purdue football game, and Craig and I are invited along as her guests for the ceremony, the game, and the tailgate that Purdue is holding for the recipients. It's a very big deal and recognizes her as one of the best educators in the region.

I am beyond proud of her. I may be her mama, but I am also an educator and I know excellence in the classroom when I see it. Lisa is one of the best of the best.

Congratulations, Lisa. This is a very well deserved award. See you on the Jumbotron!

Gone to School!

Nothing bad, just heading to campus today. I'm speaking at Purdue's Med School to students about care for people with issues like mine.

The instructor is a friend and asked if I would come share my experiences as someone who has had a lot of surgeries and medical care.

Wish me luck! 

Another Family Tournament

Second Post of the Day

If you are a Baby Boomer like me, you remember candy cigarettes. Shocking to think about now, right? But when I was a child, the dangers of smoking were not very well known and it was common for adults to smoke. Kids even played a form of freeze tag called "Cigarette Tag" where you called out a brand of cigarettes to protect yourself from being frozen by the tagger. Really.

Anyway, things have changed big time and I haven't seen candy cigarettes in years and years. Basically they were a stick of sugar with an orange colored tip to simulate the flame. 

And yes, we did imitate grown ups with them. The photo in this meme is accurate. I've done it. (Although I've never smoked.)

Anyway, I share that so you understand the opening comment in Music City Son Cole's text below in which he makes a tongue in cheek reference to candy cigarettes and sets up our family NCAA basketball brackets. 

Also, the name of our league, the Bitter Bocce Losers, is named after our 4th of July family tournament. Don't miss the video in that blog post. We may be competitive, but we have fun, too!

Nineteen of us are playing - grandparents, parents, and kiddos, and the first two rounds were this past weekend. 

And he's right, the grands who know nothing about basketball and made their choices based on team mascots last year beat us all!

This year, the grands have again made some interesting choices, and several of them are climbing the leaderboard.

Cowpoke Ian is tied for second!

Surprisingly Mountain Mama Jessica and Hawkeye Todd are at the bottom. As for me, I'm tied with "This is Good" Susie at 15th. (Susie did indeed go for Grand Canyon University who went out in the first round of 64 teams.)

I still have a chance - Purdue has made it to the Sweet Sixteen and I have them tapped as the tournament champion. (Last year they came in second in the tournament. Fingers crossed.) Cambria, too, may make a sweeping comeback as she has Purdue taking it all, too.

I love our family tournaments, whether it's Fantasy Football, the Super Bowl, Bocce, or the NCAA Basketball tournament. While the games are being played, the family text chain is dinging fast and furiously as my family comments and throws zingers at each other. It's a lot of fun.

I may not know a lot about sports, but I love how sporting events bring my family together.

Boiler Up!   

A Bleary Eyed Morning

Good night, I am tired this morning!  I'm a Ben Franklin "early to bed, early to rise" girl but last night I was up until 12:30 AM!

I'm bleary eyed and moving slow, and Pepper and Tammo are still a bit bewildered as to why their breakfast was so late this morning. Already I am looking forward to taking a long nap after lunch.

I have so much to share, things that will fill many blog posts. And I will share, possibly in a second post later today but no guarantees on that. I'm just too tired.

But I'm not the only tired person in West Lafayette. Not by a long shot. Due to the momentous traffic and influx of visitors to town yesterday, schools were closed for that day. And then, this happened:

Primarily it is because of the eclipse traffic that is still clogging the roads. There are legitimate concerns about that heavy traffic and the safety of the students. Thank you school districts for working to keep children safe.

(When I was teaching, two kids waiting for a bus out by my school got hit by a car whose driver got impatient and passed their bus as they were boarding despite the bus's flashing lights and STOP signs. Fortunately the kids survived. Our community remembers that and several more incidents like it.) 

But there was another reason for those two hour delays, and the Lafayette School Corporation made everyone smile when they called a spade a spade as they announced their two hour delay.

The Purdue/UConn NCAA Championship basketball game didn't even start until almost 9:30 PM. Thus the two hour delays so that students and staff who stayed up late to watch the game can recover a bit!

Unfortunately, Purdue lost. I wish things had been different, but by the same token, what a fun ride this season has been! I simply cannot be sad just because we lost our final game of the season. Purdue's team was incredible.

I will try to announce the winners of the April Give Away later today but no promises. If I don't, they are the first priority for tomorrow. Thanks for understanding.

Finally, an eclipse meme that made me laugh.

More to come, so stay 'tooned!

On to the Championship Game!

First Post of the Day

Purdue did it! We beat North Carolina State and are headed to the NCAA Championship game Monday night!

It was a good game and I was pleased that North Carolina State played a pretty clean game, especially the NCS players who were assigned to guard Zach Edey. Often he ends a game covered in bloody cuts and scratches from the opposing team's players who played dirty to stop him. This game, he was not. I respect a team that plays clean in such a high stakes game, so kudos to North Carolina State.

I don't have a lot of Purdue gear, but I dug around in my closet and found this 2013 Purdue Mom tee that Curt had given me. That was before I lost 100 lbs so I swam in it quite a bit, but that didn't matter. 

Kathy was ready for the big game, too, and sent me this picture of her with Tate in his Boilermaker gear.

When Purdue won, the students on campus came outside in droves and police closed the main street through campus to all traffic so they could safely enjoy celebrating Purdue's big win.

State Street did not reopen until after midnight!

As for the family bracket, perennial last placer Titan is now in fourth place and Cambria in third! Lisa and Craig are tied for first place and I am in a respectable eighth.

We play UConn for the championship and if they win, then Cambria will win this year's bracket and Titan will be second. But if Purdue wins, Lisa and Craig will have to do a tie-breaker to determine the family champion. (When you enter a bracket, you also guess the total amount of points in the championship game in case there is a tie for first place in the bracket at the end. If that tie happens, then whoever has the best guess is then declared the winner.)

Both the eclipse and the championship game are on Monday. That's going to be a very long and a very exciting day.

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Today is the last day to enter the give away! Comment on any blog post that's been published Friday, Saturday, and today to enter. Commenting ends at 11:59 Eastern time tonight.

(Why I) Boiler up! Hammer Down!

Second Post of the Day

My family's association with Purdue University goes way back to 1927 when my grandfather, Earl Honeywell, hopped on a train and traveled from Leoti, Kansas to West Lafayette, Indiana to take a position as a professor and researcher in Purdue's School of Horticulture.

The Horticulture building and one of the greenhouses where he taught and worked as they look today.

My mom was a Purdue graduate.

Georgia Honeywell, Fern Honeywell Martin, and Earl Honeywell, 1964.

 

As was my dad, Jack Martin. He also played baseball for Purdue!

All three of my siblings went to Purdue (Jenny and me at a football game)

 

and so did Craig. (He was recruited by Notre Dame to play football, but he would only play for Purdue. And the Purdue coach considered him too small and he did not make the team.) 

Curt and Vanessa both did their undergrads here at Purdue

while Curt also received his Masters degree as a Boilermaker.

As you might imagine, there is a very strong bond to Purdue in our family.

Despite that, there are some other loyalties.

With two degrees from Purdue, Curt's allegiance to Purdue is strong, but he, like all our kids (except for Sarah), was born in Illinois.

His corn hole set is an example of that. There's a Purdue side (complete with matching Purdue bags),

and an Illinois one

which also has its own matching bags.

Pony Pal Susie helping the game along in her own way.

Although Craig's retirement cake reflected that he spent many of his years teaching on the University of Illinois' campus, he never, ever switched loyalties.

Me, on the other hand... I'm a bit of an outlier.

While I did two years of undergraduate work at Purdue, I received both my Bachelors and my Masters degrees from the University of Illinois. Illinois is MY team

and it shows in various places around our home

and even when I am out and about. (Music City Son Cole is a diehard Illini and my enabler of all things Illinois.)

Sometimes that leads to some good natured back and forth, especially when you live in Purdue's backyard. Here's an example, and one of my favorite "gotcha" stories.

Jeff T., a fellow teacher in my building (and a Saddlebred man!) loved to needle me about my Illini loyalty, and I would give it right back to him. One day, I really got him good.

His classroom was hung with state flags from around the country, but there was also a Purdue flag hanging prominently among them.  

Arriving very early one morning, and with help from the custodian, I slipped into Jeff's classroom and swapped that Purdue flag out for a better one, and then left, wondering how long it would take him to notice it. 

Didn't take long! Despite the fact that there were a LOT of state flags hanging from the ceiling! Jeff and I had a good laugh about it and of course he did get me back later.

Having said all that, I do root for Purdue, and I am thrilled that today they are playing in the Final Four games of the NCAA Basketball tournament. Why is this Illini girl doing that?

- Not only do I have a strong family legacy with Purdue, I live here. (I wasn't kidding about that "backyard" comment. We live very close to campus.) I also grew up here and cheered for Purdue until I began attending classes at Illinois.

- This team is full of super nice young men who play as a TEAM and not as individuals. Even with Zach Edey who is one of the best college basketball players ever, he shares the ball. He also has been know to defend his teammates in interviews when that teammate has made a costly mistake and is taking some heat from the media for it.

- The Christmas connection. I've posted videos of Caleb Furst playing Buddy the Elf that are fundraisers for folks in need in our community. The other connection?  

I think player Fletcher Loyer looks like Hermey from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer! (from Google Images)

Hermey (from Google Images)

Can you see the similarity? A silly connection, perhaps, but also an endearing one to me.

- Finally, and maybe the most important reason to me. Not only is Coach Painter a great basketball coach, he is a great father. And I know that from personal experience because his child was in my classroom. He made time for his child. Repeatedly. Even despite his hectic schedule. I have a lot of respect for him because I saw how he kept his child a priority.  Go here to read about it. (Scroll down to the bottom of the post.) 

Purdue plays North Carolina State this evening at 6:09 PM Eastern. 

You can bet this Illini gal will be wearing her "Purdue Mom" tee shirt and rooting for the hometown guys.

Boiler up and hammer down!