As the Logan County football team and its coaches work toward improvement in the 2015 season, they are having to make their plans without one key ingredient. One of their starting quarterbacks and defenders is not expected to be back for his senior season.
Joseph Olliges, who shared quarterbacking duties with sophomore Tyler Wright this fall and with Wright and classmate Jarret Hamilton in 2013, has moved to Winter Garden, Fla. and will be trying out for the West Orange High School baseball team next month. He also hopes to play football for the Florida school.
He has been living with his aunt, Russellville accountant and civic leader Becky Olliges Spencer, and her family the last two and a half years. Now he’s going to be living with his mother and step-father, Gretchen Olliges-Ward and her husband Darrol.
Mrs. Spencer tells The LoJo: “My sister Gretchen originally moved to Florida to go to nursing school. While she was there, she met her now husband, and he didn't want to move to Kentucky. Joseph asked to live with me his freshman year so he could play baseball and football at Logan County. So that's why he was living with me.
“However, as his senior year is approaching, his mom was having a hard time knowing she was going to miss out on so much with him. So basically she was missing him and he was homesick as well. He also realized if if he didn't live in Florida his senior year, he would be charged the nonresident college tuition. The quickness of his move was because in order to try out for baseball in Florida, he had to be enrolled before this semester ended. Although I miss him like he is my own, I am just so thankful for the life.”
Shannon Silvey Williamson, leader of the Facebook group “LCHS Football Family” and the mother of current senior football player Chase Williamson, wrote this to Spencer: “This makes me SO sad, but I know it was hard being away from his mama. You and your husband did an amazing job being surrogate role models and parents to him.”
Coach Steve Duncan said, “Joseph was an important player for us this year, as he was our quarterback and a defensive back. He was one of the best tacklers on the team and really started to show his quickness at the end of the year. We will really miss him, as he was one of the players coming back with experience and also with a lot of physical quickness and speed. On top of that he was a fine young man who had a good attitude.”
In the photo, Olliges is second from right by Becky Spencer. From left are the rest of his Logan County family, Ashley Barton, Brittney Barton and David Spencer.