DVD

If you are interested in having a DVD of Daniel's funeral celebration, please contact shaggabear@yahoo.com. The cost is $10 and all proceeds will go to the Daniel Duncan Music Memorial Scholarship Fund. They are also available at Sheri's Coffeehouse, in Norwalk.

Let my lifesong sing for You

March 8, 1990 – September 3, 2008

Daniel Ashton Duncan, 18 of Norwalk died Wednesday evening in Buckhannon, WV while riding his bicycle. He was struck by a drunk driver.

He was born in Riverdale, Georgia on March 8, 1990 to Robert and Karen Duncan.

He was a 2008 graduate of St. Paul High School and was very active in the music program: Jazz Band, Junior-Senior Choir, Folk Group, and the Spring Musicals. Daniel was in the National Honor Society. His senior project was about the history of church bells in Norwalk. He attended Buckeye Boy’s State in 2007, as a representative from St. Paul.

Daniel was involved in the All Ohio State Fair Youth Choir in 2007. He also performed with Cynthia Kniffin Dance Academy for five years. Daniel took piano lessons from the age of 7 to 18 with Val Bressler and won several awards and ribbons through the years.

Daniel was very active in his church youth group, Remain, and also led worship and played keyboard for Church of The King weekly services. He went on missions trips to Nicaragua, New York City, and Washington DC to share the love of Jesus.

Daniel was a newspaper carrier since age 11, even earning the State Carrier of the Year award in 2003. During high school, Daniel worked at the Reflector Office in the afternoons. He also enjoyed doing landscaping work for various individuals around town. This past summer, he worked full-time for Iris Riley doing landscaping.

Daniel loved gardening, biking and anything to do with the outdoors. He was a voracious reader from a young age and loved to learn. He had a great love of cars enjoyed reading Car and Driver.

Daniel was a charismatic, joyful, loving, loyal friend and the best big brother. He loved the Lord with all his heart and he showed God’s love and kindness to everyone he met. He loved to surprise people by randomly showing up at their house to say hi and ask for a drink of water.

Daniel was enrolled as a freshman at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, WV where he received a Presidential Scholarship and a Music Scholarship. He joined the Honors program, was a member of the Concert Chorale, the Wesleyan Jazz Ensemble, Chapel Praise Band and the Cycling Club.

He is survived by his parents, Robert and Karen Duncan, his six siblings; His paternal grandparents; Maternal grandparents; Maternal Great-grandmother; and scores of Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins.

Friends may call on Saturday, September 6 at Joan C. Camp Auditorium from 1-6 pm. Services will be held at 3:30 pm at the Norwalk Alliance Church on Rt. 250 South. Internment will be a private family gathering on Monday morning

In lieu of flowers, the family would like donations to the Daniel Duncan Memorial Music Scholarship Fund.

Arrangements are being handled by Walker Funeral Home in Norwalk.

Well, I am officially done with my first week of college. So far I am in two singing groups, jazz band, and the cycling club/team. Can anybody say busy? It looks like I will be able to manage everything well enough though. So far I have made some friends in music and biking, and hope to make some more.

The food here tastes pretty good, however, my digestive system doesn't seem to agree. Many returning students have warned me that there is an acclimation period of about two weeks when it comes to the food. I'm not sure what all I'll do this weekend, but it looks like I might have a forty mile bike ride on Sunday afternoon. We'll have to see about that, but it sounds fun. I also bought a plant today at the plant sale. It is a Peperomia, whatever that is, but it looks good. I'll keep you posted on any exciting events over the weekend.

Daniel

Well, I am in college now. How profound I am. I start classes tomorrow and then the real work starts, but I am already having fun. I am in a philosophy seminar for the first semester, and this class also acts like a small group. There are 17 people in my group and we have done several activities over the orientation weekend. Last night was the annual Wesleyan trivia night, and my group came in second place overall! Yay free smoothies!

I also found out yesterday that I made the Concert Chorale. I was very excited to say the least. That's about all as far as the exciting stuff is going. Oh, and I have been riding about an hour every morning. It will take awhile to get used to the whole hill thing, but it is going well. That's all for now. I will write later

Happy Birthday

Hacker Alert! This blog has been hacked to wish the owner a very HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY!

I am still alive

Just is case some of you were wondering I am in fact still alive. I also still believe in the power of blogging, I just haven't been practising for a while. I will now proceed to post my schedule for the next three weeks. I have my jazz band and choir concert this Sunday starting at 1 p.m. It should be fun. The following Wednesday I have a music audition at West Virginia Wesleyan College. This audition is for possible scholarship money, so pray it goes well. The The weekend of March 7th, 8th and 9th I have my school musical as well as the International Federation of Independent Music Clubs piano competition at Heidelberg College in Tiffin. THe following Tuesday I will be leaving for my senior retreat in Plymouth Michigan.

That is the current brief overview of my life. Also, I went to the foot doctor yesterday and hopefully we will soon have a cure for my stinky feet that pass all understanding. I hope to possibly, maybe, update withing the month but we shall see.

another weekend

Well, this has been a busy weekend. I finally finished a 1000+ page book that I was reading called The Winds of War. It was a good book but it was very disapointing to find out at the end that it is simply setting you up for the sequel. Oh well, didn't kill me and I did enjoy the book. This upcoming week is going to be a little crazy, with two shows to go to and a piano recital/competition. It will be a good week though. The end of daylight saveings time is always sad, but the seasons roll on. By the way, my sister and I were having a disscussion about how almost every native culture that we could think of all over the world has war drums. It is interesting how you can know that it is a war beat without even knowing what is going on. Oh well, that is all for now.

Fine, I'll post since you insist. Well, today I went with Alex Fries (pronounced freeze) and gave him a tour of the Episcopal church here in town. He was duly impressed, and I did something I have never done before. I actually went up into the bell tower! We didn't actually go into the room where the bell is, but when I went to push up the trap door into that part, about three inches of pigeon poop slid off of the door! Super K would have loved it! Anyway, Alex got some pictures without actually going up there. There is only one bell, but there are two ropes. One actually swings the bell and the other is for a hammer that hits the bell. It is interesting.

The amazing part is that I actually went up there with rickity ladders and all. It was fun though. After that we went over to St. Marys and went up in their bell tower. It was pretty cool, I could see Plum Brook Station from up there. Well, thats about all that I did today. Pretty fun stuff.

CHange

Well, I have started my senior year of High School. I'm not sure what I think about it so far, but I will let you all know as I figure it out. (HA). Life is changing, (Gasp, CHANGE!!!) but that is good. I will try to give a real update soon.

Well, sorry it has been a couple of days but I have not been able to find an empty computer when I was available. Several interesting things have happened recently. I have told many of you how annoyed I was with my town for the way that they were acting. Things came to head Thursday evening. A lot of guys were late for evening lineup when we go to the assembly. Our counselor Alex had to keep telling people to be quiet, and they were ignoring him. His assistant Perry then had to tell them to be quiet and they were ignoring him as well. It got to be bad enough that Perry told us we were going to walk in two straight lines to assembly and not talk.

As soon as we got downstairs the guys started talking, and when they got in trouble for it they started talking back. Things were not looking good at all, and I was pretty mad about it. I was mad that they thought that this was anywhere near appropriate. Every night up until this point they had been introducing the counselors from each of the dorms. The kids from that counselors city normally stood up and clapped, cheered, etc. Well, our guys were so worked up that they decided that they were not going to do anything at all.

As it turned out they didn't introduce counselors at all. There is a system here of rewarding the best preforming town in each county with a flag. The first night we won the flag. This was the third night of the flags, and we didn't get the flag, we came in last place.

At the city meeting that night all the guys were talking about why we came in last place. They were coming up with all of these silly ideas, like we just weren't being creative enough, and if we just tried harder with what we were already doing, etc.

After about ten minutes of this I stood up, still upset but not nearly as mad as I was earlier. I told the guys that I thought the problem was a severe lack of respect for the leaders. I talked about how even if you don't like your leaders you still need to respect them, and amazingly enough they listened. When I got up for all I knew, they might just ignore me and decide not to talk to me, but they listened. It was pretty cool because the change was almost immediate.

Since then our city has become unified in a way that I couldn't even have imagined. It has been pretty amazing. Last night, we won the flag, and things have been going great. I also got a hour nap, and as many of you know that just makes life better.

Well, today has been a very busy day. We started off the day with several different things that we knew we needed to get done for the day. This included writing a piece of legislation as well as working together with the counties and cities in order to make sure that those with mental retardation and developmental disabilities receive fair treatment.

We started out the day only to have several of the legionnaires who are working in the court section come by and tell us that we needed to let someone go so that they could go work in the courts. Apparently the courts did not have enough people to cover all of the clerk and bailiff positions. The thing that stinks about this is that MRDD is supposed to be the 5th largest department in the state and we only had 4 people to start with. Now we are down to three, and things have been crazy, but I think we are starting to get settled in to an extent.

A very funny thing for many of you though, I am the one in charge of the budget, payroll, and paying the bills. It has been going all right, except for the fact that we are going to need twice the amount of money that we were budgeted. Oh well, it is a lot of fun, and I am getting to run all over the place. I will talk to you guys later.

Well, I got my job. I am working for the Department of MRDD, which stands for Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities. I am the asistant director. This is actually turning out to be a pretty good job. I am employed by the state, and my boss is a member of the governer's cabinet. The office would oversee all of the programs such as Christie Lane for the entire state, as well as lobby for the rights of those with mental disabilities.

We are pretty much given the opportunity to do whatever we want to do within our budget. The governer is requiring that we write a bill to be submitted to the legislature, and we have to set up a display for the State Fair on Saturday.

I think that this will be a good job, and I am looking forward to it. There is also a Mental Disabilities Bill of Rights. We will print this out and give it to each of the cities. If they display it in a public place then we will give them 5000 dollars, if they refuse or just don't do it then we have the power to fine them 15,000 dollars, so we will also be doing this.

The inagural ceremony is tonight, and it looks like the governer is going to be speaking there. I will also get the chance to talk to him when he visits my office later today.

Well, I'll talk to you guys later.

Primaries Over.

This whole election deal has moved so fast. I did not make it past the primaries. However, I did do very well. I got 120 votes, there was a kid who got 13 more, and then the kid who won got 151 votes. My conseler said that he had never seen a race that close before. Also, there were several canidates behind me. Overall this really isn't dissapointing. I had thought that it would be but there are still a lot of options left. The state job fair starts at 7:30 and I am planning on being there early inorder to get a good job.

I miss all of you, but I have been to busy up until this point to really think about it. There are several pianos here, and as most of you know that makes me very happy. I will continue to update, since this is the most that I have updated for the last month or so.

Primaries

Today is primaries. I already went and voted, we will have to see how it goes. I do feel that I have several advantages as things ended up working out. I was the first canidate to turn in my petition therefore I am first on the ballot. Also, as far as I know I was the only one to go out and talk to people instead of just putting up signs. I will keep praying and keep you guys updated. If I win the primary, then I have a debate later. I will let you guys know.

boys state

Well, I'm back and at boys state. I don't really hve time to tell you guys about my time at the conference in D.C., this information will come though. I just wanted to let you guys know that I am running for Chief Supreme Court Justice, and i have succesfully passed my bar exam. The average pass rate over the years has been 14% with three chances to pass, and at least an 88% to pass. I got a 94%, one of the highest, and I passed on my first try. I collected my signatures for my petitions and have succesfully started my campaign. Daniel xxxxx for Chief Supreme Court Justice. Interpretting the law, not writing it.

Please continue to pray for me. I have also been praying over the entire campus, and I believe that i am walking in God's favor. Talk to you guys later.

Daniel

Tonight

Tonight we are going to play for the talent show at the High School. I am playing with Super K, Belle, Doon, and also another song with Laura. We are going to be playing at the high school itself, and because of this we seem to have been having a difficult time getting ready. First of all we are playing a song by the Newsboys, and it is totally different from anything we have ever done before. We have also not had very much time to practice and are not feeling super ready for this. There has been a lot of extra stuff going on during this time with school and all of our extra activities. There has been a lot of doubt among us as to whether or not we are doing the right thing. Also, I have been dealing with hopelessness myself. I feel that this is because part of what we are coming up against is the hopelessness in the school. I need to go right now but please pray.

Dog Bites.

First of all I would like to let you all know that several weeks ago I was attacked by a vicious man eating German monster. The name Shepperd is not at all applicable, thus monster. (As a side note I was not messing with this monster's sheep, therefore I am not at fault.) I was simply walking by completely unaware and doing nothing to provoke it and all the sudden my leg was in the iron grip of a vicious beast. Luckily due to my amazing running and screaming abilities I was able to get away from the monster with only slight wounds.

In reality, it was a really old German Shepperd that has a thing for tall thin guys, so at least I have a good physique.

Rambling on about who knows what

I had a busy weekend, but it was good. I know that I haven't posted much lately. I have a theory about that. Blogging is a winter sport and when spring time roles around you simply lose the momentum that was once so strong. I promised that I would let you guys know more about the conference, so here goes.

The second night was awesome. Pastor Eric Reeder is one of the leaders of the emerging generation. He spoke that night, and it was very powerful. His heart is for this generation and to see us walk in our destiny. One of the best things about this is that he is not advocating the usual, the youth need to rebel against the oppression of the older generations. He is instead saying that we need to work together with the older generation in order to see true transformation in the church.

If anybody is not following this at all let me know and I will try to make it clearer.

We have a destiny to change our country. God is going to start moving in each of our lives in ways that we have never seen before. You may not think that you can make a difference, and you may not even want to make a difference, but I believe that God has other plans. Give me any reason you want about how we are too young, or the government can never change, or the moral decay has gone to far, and I have to tell you that the God I serve is bigger.

I guess that is all for now. This is also what I call my rambling format, so if anything needs clarified, let me know.

And thus I succumb

I appear to have given into peer pressure, and it has been quite fun reading reading all of your wonderful comments in the meantime. I wonder if I will get this much traffic on my blog by just writing? I would like to quote a very famous person who once said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. I have no idea who this person actually was, however they must have been famous because I have heard that one a lot.

As most of you know, I am currently at a church conference in Marietta, OH. It has been really good so far. The focus so far seems to be on connecting the generations. For those of you who do not understand this, it is all about the older people, or the current generation, working with us younger people, known as the emerging generation.

The really cool part is that everything that they are talking about in this conference is stuff that we are already doing here at home in COTK.

We have had a lot of fun here, and it is really good. I will let you guys know of anything else I think about, although I do need to go right now.

Talk to you guys later.

I'm not even done with high school!

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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