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My story didn’t surprise West Aurora athletic director Jason Buckley.
Several weeks ago while preparing a column updating the school’s stadium renovation project that has been years in the making, I reached out to Neal Ormond for input.
One facet, of course, will be to name the stadium in honor of the Ormond family, recognizing their contributions to the school district and community since Neal’s parents moved here in 1943.
The official dedication of Ken Zimmerman Field at Ormond Stadium takes place at 6:30 p.m. Thursday before the Blackhawks’ football game against Joliet West.
Where did I find the longtime Voice of the Blackhawks broadcaster, volunteer coach, school board member and supporter of nearly everything imaginable representing West Aurora?
He answered his cellphone at the school’s tennis courts.
There, the 81-year-old Ormond was using a leaf blower to sweep debris in preparation of the season opener for the girls tennis team later that afternoon.
Did I mention the man is 81?
He also continues to assist with the girls basketball and softball teams and previously assisted with cross country and track.
Fittingly, this girls tennis season marks the 81st he has been an assistant coach in all sports and all seasons for the Blackhawks.
“No doubt,” Buckley said. “Whether its helping with scholarships, landscaping, serving on a committee or organizing, there is no job too big or too small for that family. It does not surprise me.”
Serving West Aurora has been a labor of love for Ormond, his wife Mary Clark, their three children and Neal’s four siblings. It was sparked and nurtured by Neal’s parents, Neal and Margery Roy Ormond.
Neal, of course, remembers the local high school football stadium, situated among the corn fields then blanketing what is now Aurora’s West Side. The high school stadium’s wooden bleachers were built by building trades classes in 1926.
It served the community for decades before the current high school was built. That came in 1953, funded by a 1952 referendum his parents helped get passed.
“My parents stressed education, loyalty, hard work and volunteerism,” said Neal Ormond, who took it to heart as he and his siblings earned 10 college degrees.
He remembers riding his bike on a path through the corn to his own field of dreams to watch the high school team’s games and practices.
The stadium’s concrete grandstand was built in 1958, the year Neal Ormond graduated, and was first refurbished in 1994.
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Mary Clark Ormond grew up on Chicago’s South Side and earned the first of her three degrees from Rosary, which is now Dominican. She has a master’s degree in library science and an MBA in business.
“We are both very passionate about Aurora,” Neal said. “She quickly became an Auroran.”
Mary, who led the Aurora Public Library and has been president of the local historical society for the past 11 years, is responsible for planting more than 100 trees that dot the West Aurora campus.
“She has created an arboretum with many different kinds of trees, and there are signs identifying them and can be studied by the students,” Neal said. “We brought many of them here in the back of our station wagon.”
Thirty-four leafless evergreens surround much of the tennis courts, although there is an ironwood that does have leave at one corner.
“It sheds its leaves late,” Neal Ormond said. “So as not to disrupt the tennis season.”
In his 11th year at West Aurora, Buckley marvels like many of us.
“It’s easy to see why the district is doing this,” Buckley said. “What the family has done in the last century is amazing.”
It is indeed.