Teacher/coach puckers up with biggest fish

By Hal Johnson
Herald Writer

Jamestown Area High School basketball coach Scott Taylor might be wondering what students there really think about him.

Taylor won the student body’s dubious honor of kissing a fish at an assembly Friday afternoon. Through their contributions to Students For Charity, Taylor was the students’ overwhelming choice to kiss a fish.

The students voted by including the name of their favorite faculty member — or the one they would most like to humiliate — with their donations. The more money donated, the more votes for that teacher. The donations and votes were placed in Mason jars throughout the high school. Also last week, Jamestown Elementary School students raised funds for Students For Charity through a penny drive, said High School Principal Michael Krepps.

Shenango Valley Foundation will match funds raised by Students For Charity. Proceeds are earmarked for someone in need in the Jamestown area, Krepps said. In the past, proceeds have aided people having trouble paying heating bills or helping a family dig a water well after the September 1998 earthquake, he said.

The high school students raised more than $300 and about half of that was marked for Coach Taylor.

So, the physical education teacher put his lips to the biggest fish that Pymatuning State Park rangers and the state Fish Commission could find, Krepps said.

For being a good sport, Taylor was presented with an “I kissed a fish for charity” T-shirt and two tickets to a country western concert, the high school principal said.

Kissing a fish may be considered an honor at Jamestown. The school mascot is a muskie.

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