Last week our team set up a fundraising table at Millersville University for Dr. Steve Centola, our English professor who passed away a couple of months ago.  We had a carnival-type wheel spin game.  For a quarter, if it landed on the number you chose, you won an Arthur Miller script, donated by Dramatist's Play Service, Inc.  Our teacher was a friend of Arthur Miller and the top Miller scholar in the country. 

The college kids stopped by and spun the wheel, and we raised almost $60 for the American Cancer Society, one quarter at a time.  But the most gratifying thing about the day was when the students saw the scripts and said, "I love Death of a Salesman," or "The Crucible is so cool!"  We knew Dr. Centola would be proud of us for keeping his passion alive!  He'll always be with us. 

In August, 2007, I wrote to my college professor with a simple question about a play I was reading and got an answer I never expected.  He said that he'd been diagnosed with adreno-cortical carcinoma and that the prognosis was not good.  I spent a lot of time feeling really sad, but woke up one morning, PRAISE GOD, with the idea to start a Relay team to support this wonderful teacher from Millersville University of Pennsylvania.  I'm glad he knew about the team before he passed away on January 9, 2008.  He was even looking forward to the Survivor's Lap.  The registration form probably reached his doorstep the day of his funeral, that's how quickly the cancer took him.  The fundraising is going quite well despite the lack of Millersville students who have been coming forward to join the team.  Maybe they didn't appreciate Dr. Centola's 3 hour lectures about Arthur Miller and American Drama, but I hung on every word, perhaps somehow knowing that the world was about to lose this treasure of a teacher.