Otto Graham could arguably be one of the best quarterbacks of all time. Graham was quarterback for my hometoen team the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons. Graham is regarded by critics as one of the most dominant players of his era, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, making ten championship appearances IN A ROW, and winning seven of them, four of them in the AAFC and three in the NFL. With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs. He holds the NFL record for career average yards gained per pass attempt, with 8.63. He also holds the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, at 81.0%. Long-time New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, a friend of Graham's, once called him "as great of a quarterback as there ever was."

Verse of the Day
for Monday, February 13, 2023

submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. -- Ephesians 5:21

Thoughts on Today's Verse...
Worship on Sunday can be inspiring and uplifting. Worship in everyday life can be exhilarating. Worship in our relationships can be t***sformational. But such worship always requires that we give up our own ways, our own wills, and our own wants and learn to live for another. If we truly live with Christ Jesus as our Lord, we will live as he did; we will submit to others to serve them for their good and to meet their needs. Sometimes that means being tender. Other times that means being tough. But it always means living to God's glory.

My Prayer...
O LORD God Almighty, I find it hard to submit myself and my desires to anyone else. I find it so easy to see things only from my point of view. I catch myself looking out for my own self-interest and not the welfare of others. Please fill me with your Spirit more mightily so that my life displays your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. In Jesus' name, I ask for your divine help so that my life displays more of Jesus' character. Amen.

The Thoughts and Prayer on Today's Verse are written by Phil Ware.

FERTILE, Minn. — JANUARY 2023 UPDATE:

Since this story was originally published in July of 2022, Willow Larson has sold more than 10,000 additional mugs.

She currently offers more than 150 town designs, which are available in more than 100 stores. Willow's dad, mom and grandmother are on her payroll as she works to keep up with demand.

She's also taken delivery of two new heat presses that each print five mugs at a time.

While she once coveted a sage green VW Bug, Willow is now preparing to order a brand new SUV, which she’s deemed more practical for her deliveries. Of course, the ninth grader still needs a driver's license. Willow only recently turned 15.

ORIGINAL STORY:


The video above first aired on KARE 11 on July 18, 2022.

Teenagers looking for work in Fertile, Minnesota, have a few options.

Some work at the coffee shop. Others babysit or get jobs at the local nursing home.

But you’ll find Willow Larson’s mug at a business all her own.

“This is Erskine,” the 14-year-old says as she pulls a coffee cup from a row of dozens. The mug displays the attributes of the western Minnesota town of 400 people.

“I have the café, which is big there,” she says, pointing to the cup’s artwork. “And then fishing, it's right on a lake.”


Credit: Chad Nelson/KARE 11
A coffee cup Willow Larson designed for the northwestern Minnesota community of Erskine.
Town names and attractions pop in colorful font from each of the cups. Thief River Falls, Mentor, Gary, and East Grand Forks are among them.

Willow created them all, and in doing so, stumbled on a successful niche business.

Search online for a Minneapolis coffee cup and you'll find dozens of options. Yet, “Nobody really had anything for small towns,” Willow says. “So, I decided to do these, and people loved them.”

Really loved them.

Willow’s cups are now for sale in three dozen shops in Minnesota and North Dakota.

The past six months alone, she's sold more than 1,000 of them.


Credit: Chad Nelson/KARE 11
Willow Larson poses with some the coffee cups she designed.
The cups typically retail for about $24.

Willow could have sold more, but can only design them so fast. She has a waiting list of 15 towns to add to the 50 communities she’s already featured on her cups.

“I'm working on Bird Island right now,” Willow says as she draws the town’s water tower using her iPad.

“They're selling like crazy in all these little gift shops and boutiques and stuff like that,” Caty Larson, Willow’s mother, says.

Caty and her husband Terry own a photography studio on Fertile’s main street in which Willow has carved out a workspace.

The couple recognized their daughter’s artistic talent at an early age – and also her entrepreneurial sense.

“She was probably 4 or 5, I had a garage sale, and instead of setting up a lemonade stand, Willow decided to set up an art stand,” Caty says. “She had a little sign that said, ‘Art Sale.’ I think she was selling her drawings for a dollar each.”


Credit: Caty Larson
Willow Larson made her first dollar as an artist selling her drawings at her mother’s garage sale.
Caty started posting her daughter’s artwork on Facebook, which led to offers to purchase her work.

On a whim, then-12-year-old Willow designed a coffee mug for her hometown, which lead to shops in neighboring towns requesting their own cups.

Across the street from the Larsons' photo studio, Jamie Paul runs Morning Glory, a coffee and flower shop.

Several of Willow’s community cups are featured on display shelves.

There’s one striking omission.

“I'm actually sold out of Fertile mugs right now,” Jamie says with a smile.

Unhappy with delays from the company that printed her cups, Willow spent $2,000 of her savings to purchase her own heat press. Rather than relying on a supplier, she now applies her artwork to the cups herself.

“I have to spend money, to make money,” Willow concluded.


Credit: Chad Nelson/KARE 11
Willow Larson with her original artwork for Erskine, Minnesota's coffee cup
The teen has also acquired a financial advisor to help her with her investments.

“When she's done with high school, and if she chooses to go to college, she should easily be able to pay for a good part of it herself, if not all of it,” her mother says.

Willow also has her eye on a car.

“A sage green convertible Bug,” she says.

“She could buy one right now if she wanted to,” Caty adds.

Not that Willow, at 14, could drive it.

Willow’s artwork also caught the eye of a North Dakota publisher, which hired her to do the illustrations for a business book. Her mother says the publisher had to wait until Willow’s 14th birthday, before she could legally do the work.

The incoming 9th-grader maintains an active school life too, participating in jazz band, pep band, concert band, track, and Nordic skiing.


Credit: Chad Nelson/KARE 11
Jamie Paul sells several of Willow Larson’s coffee mugs at Morning Glory, her flower and coffee shop in Fertile, Minnesota.
When she can’t keep up with orders for her cups, Willow hires a cousin, friends and even her parents to help meet the demand.

From her flower and coffee shop across the street, Jamie Paul has been watching Willow’s business blossom.

“Remember her name, because she's going somewhere,” Jamie says.

Editor's Note: Click here for the Facebook page for Willow Larson's business, Ivory & Sage.

Click here for the Ivory & Sage website.

I read, in passing, that Sowell attributes the decline of black culture since the 40's and 50's to the influx of Liberal funds to the black people.

That is neither a complete nor accurate report of the cause of black "culture decay".

For one, it takes two. Just as in a marketplace, where it takes both a buyer and a seller, the relationship between black and white takes a "giver" and a "taker". In bringing ruin upon the race of b****s, both the givers and the takers are to blame. Liberals (read L*****ts, and L*****t Jews)---the givers---are not giving money indiscriminately to black folk because they think this will help b****s "achieve success"; they do it solely to be able to manipulate these more simple-minded folk, and thus obtain power and authority, using b****s as "proxies". B***k A******ns---the takers---do it because at heart they are a materialistic people, with little ability to assess longer term complex consequences of events in the present.

They, the givers and the takers, were informed by more the more intelligent, that this expansion of funds to the b****s would have this very effect, but paid no attention. The givers did not want to give up what they thought would be the means to the end they envisioned (e.g., Hillary Clinton) and the takers were enamored at what they thought would make them be "just like white folk".

So now there is a mess in America.

But anyway, I'm out of here. I've been asking Admin for the last week to completely delete my account; I can't take being this close to the morons of America: Milosia, moldyoldy, Rinaldi, PeterS, you know who they are; but especially woodguru alias you-know-who. And nothing changes. The comments and current affairs being posted are about the same as they have been for the last eight or nine years.