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Stories in this issue:

• Christmas Leave
• PHOTO ESSAY: Free Time Hangout Spots
• Chili Wars Semifinals
• College Road Trip Planned to VCU
• To the Top of the Sears Tower
• PHOTO ESSAY: ThomaClaus is Comin' to Town

Christmas Leave

Over the Christmas and New Year Holidays, Fork Union Military Academy will be closed so that staff and faculty may spend time visiting family and reflecting on what this time means to us as a Christian community. Thus, we require all cadets to be off campus during the time from 1600 (4:00PM) on December 15th through January 2nd. Cadets may begin returning as early as 0700 (7:00AM) on January 2nd.

We will dismiss on Friday the 15th at noon, and cadets are required to return by 1830 (6:30PM) on the 2nd.

We encourage parents of cadets traveling from major transportation hubs to use the bus service we provide to Richmond, Dulles, and Tyson’s Corner. Private hire services are not always available and are costly from Fork Union.

Charter buses are available to:

• Richmond bus and train
• Richmond airport
• Dulles airport and Tyson’s Corner

Private hire may be available to:

• Charlottesville air, bus, and train (private hire only)
• Reagan airport

Please see the bus schedule form for times, costs and details.

For further information and to make arrangements please contact the Leave Office by email, dodsonr@fuma.org, or phone 434-842-4231.

Chili Wars Semifinals

Echo Company vs. Alpha Company

The Semifinal Cook-Off Round to determine the top cadet chili chefs was contested this past Thursday, December 7th. The upper classmen of Alpha Company faced off against their younger brethren of Echo Company.

Echo Company's chefs worked all afternoon Wednesday, with cadet cooks rotating through every ten or fifteen minutes until they found their best performing team to finish up their secret recipe by 1700 hours Wednesday evening.

In contrast, the cadets of Alpha Company got a late start on Thursday morning, but managed to put their chili together just in time for the competition.

As the voting began during the first lunch period, the competition was very close, but as late morning turned to early afternoon, the votes began to accumulate faster for Echo Company's chili. In the final tally, the preparation and effort of Echo Company paid off with a resounding victory, 103 to 52.

Athletic Department vs. Art Department

The semifinal between the Art Department and the Athletic Department was held during today's lunch. The atmosphere in the kitchen today "was electric," in the words of Larry McIlnay, Director of Dining Services. The defending champions from last year's contest, the Athletic Department, squared off against the Art Department with both teams dishing nearly as much trash talk as tomato sauce in the kitchen, according to our sources.

The voting remained very close throughout both lunch periods and it came down to the last few remaining votes for the stalemate to be decided by a vote of 86 to 84. The Art Department unseated the reigning champs from the Athletic Department in a squeaker.

The victorious staff chili cooks from the Art Department will face Echo Company's kitchen-tested cadet warriors in the final round of competition in January, following the Christmas break.

College Road Trip Planned to VCU

To the Top of the Sears Tower

If you are an adult of a certain age, one memory of the holiday season that is probably high on your list of favorites is that magical day when the Sears Christmas Wishbook would arrive in the mail. It is likely that there were many different products advertised for sale within this iconic mail-order catalog, from t-shirts to toolboxes, but all many of us will remember are the toys. It was a treasure trove of toys to look at, to wish for, and to add to the list to be mailed to Santa Claus. In those days, it was Sears Roebuck and their catalog that was the very embodiment of (and ambassador for) the spirit of Santa Claus.

It's appropriate at this time of year to tell the story of an alumnus of Fork Union Military Academy named Edward Telling, and the role he played in the growth of Sears, Roebuck, and Company.

Edward Riggs Telling was born in Danville, Illinois on April 1st of 1919. His father and uncles owned a bank that was forced to merge with a larger institution during the Depression of the 1930s. Telling arrived at Fork Union Military Academy in the fall of 1937 and played football as a postgraduate under head coach Rosie Thomas. In that year, Fork Union posted a winning record of 5-3-1 and Telling was able to earn a scholarship to play football for Duke University the following year. His teammate, Dick McElwee, would go on to play with the Detroit Lions.

Telling, however, was not destined to stay long at Duke University. It seems that his heart was still in Illinois. Telling left Duke to attend Illinois Wesleyan University to be nearer to his high school sweetheart. The story goes that Telling's father withdrew his financial support when he left Duke, and Telling worked the rest of his way through college. After his college graduation, Telling joined the US Navy and served for a time as a pilot.

By 1946, Telling had returned to his hometown of Danville, Illinois and went to work at his local Sears store as a stockroom trainee. Showing both the grit of a Fork Union cadet and the work ethic of a man who paid his own way through college, Telling progressed quickly through the ranks, to become the store manager of the Danville Sears store. Telling soon was moved into corporate management with Sears.

Sears, Roebuck, and Co. was the dominant retailing giant in those years, a pioneer in mail-order catalogs, and creator of leading brands such as Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools, and DieHard batteries. Telling was promoted to manage the company's Eastern division, and soon, the company's large Midwest territories.

The Sears corporate headquarters in Chicago, the 110-story Sears Tower, was the tallest building in the world when completed in 1974. In 1976, Telling was named the Senior Executive Vice President of all Sears stores.

In February of 1978, Edward R. Telling was named Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sears. During Telling's tenure, as many as 70% of American families earning at least $36,000 had a Sears charge card in their wallet. From 1978 until his retirement in 1985, Telling led the company though one of its biggest periods of expansion. Under his leadership, Sears expanded aggressively into financial services, acquiring Coldwell Banker, Dean Witter, and creating the Discover Card.

In the early 1990s, following Telling’s retirement, Sears lost its position as the nation’s biggest retailer, falling to #3 behind discount stores like Walmart and Kmart.

Sears has fallen on even harder times in recent years, but many adults still remember the day when Sears was not only the place where everybody shopped—most importantly, Sears was where Santa shopped.

When you think back on those Sears Wishbook memories, you can now remember that it was a former cadet of Fork Union Military Academy who played a major role in creating those memories for you.