BATESVILLE — Dear Editor, Wow! The first Margaret Mary Community Hospital- sponsored sports physicals were better attended than anyone expected. Thank you, student-athletes and parents, for supporting your individual school by attending this event and getting your sports physicals for the 2010-11 school year done and out of the way. Also, a special thank you to MMCH staff and the local physicians who donated their time to help our student-athletes and parents in these struggling economic times. The nominal $20 fee collected by MMCH is being donated back to the student-athletes’ athletic department. For Batesville High School and Batesville Middle School, this will be a great donation, helping us keep an athletic trainer on staff to serve the student- athletes’ health and well-being. Thank you, thank you, thank you to Carmen Pride, Eric Fledderman and Michele Werner, who organized the community service, and our local physicians – Dr. John Gryspeerdt, Dr. Gretchen Hartz, Dr. Elisabeth Kelley, Dr. Kim Kick and Dr. Ed Negovetich. The turnout, as mentioned, was outstanding. There were 189 student-athletes seen by the staff that single evening. Due to this success, we have already had some discussion and will be meeting in the very near future to solve the time dilemma. We saw the time factor as the only negative to the event. It is all our intentions to have each student-athlete’s physical completed in half an hour, but the main focus will still be to provide a very thorough and professional physical exam. The safety and welfare of our kids will never be sacrificed. Some of the ideas already shared are: 1. Have two separate nights; one night at Batesville Middle School for St. Louis and BMS student-athletes and the other night at Batesville High School for BHS and Oldenburg Academy student-athletes. 2. Have a time breakdown as per grade level of the student-athlete. 3. Solicit more help from our local physicians so more individuals are seen at one time. Again, thanks to everyone. If you have ideas or suggestions, please forward them to me at mferguson@batesville.k12.in.us. Mark Ferguson, Batesville High School athletic director