Orphaned records

When I came into the office Thursday morning, there was an fax (several, actually, as either ours or the sender's had some sort of malfunction) which contained an article from April 29, 1978.

The story was about the Fort Scott Middle School track team, which had just won the SEK-East League championship. This team had a great season and scored 121 points in the league meet. The article said that the rest of the league put together -- four teams -- scored 97 points.

The person who submitted it told Rayma that his mother found the article and also said that many school and league records were noted. He thought that if there was something we could do with this information, that would be nice, but if we couldn't, that was okay, too.

And I started wondering…are these records still relevant?

Not that they're not meaningful. The individuals or their parents may still have the articles and medals and have some wonderful memories. But here is what I mean:

* -- Fort Scott Middle School's athletic program is now entirely intramurals. And they may not keep records.

* -- This was a freshmen team. The freshmen now compete for Fort Scott High School and seldom do they make varsity and have an opportunity to compete in a league championship meet.

* -- This "SEK-East League" referred to in the story probably doesn't exist anymore, since all the Southeast Kansas League schools now have freshmen at their high schools instead of at junior highs. This league included Girard, which plays in a league with other towns that have high school teams in the CNC League. I'm not even sure if the other SEK school districts have an equivalent league for their middle schools. And if this league doesn't exist anymore, did anyone keep the records?

So basically the question is: If the program doesn't exist in its form anymore and the league doesn't exist in its form anymore, are the records still records?

The person who faxed told Rayma that there was a big board at the middle school where they kept track of the records. He was curious if anyone knows what happened to it.

But even if it is still around, where would you put it?

These are interesting questions. But these records really have no home. They're orphaned, so to speak, noted by someone in history but without a true owner.