Prospect woman makes scrapbooks for athletes
PROSPECT— Clippings from newspapers, photographs and embroidered Slippery Rock Rockets sweatshirts decorate the home of scrapbook maker Arleen McCurdy.
McCurdy has been making scrapbooks for Slippery Rock High School athletes for a long time, so long she can't recall exactly when it all started.
Arleen has put together scrapbooks for graduating seniors in football, basketball and baseball. Each book features news articles from the season's games, along with photos of the teams in action.
"I'm in the process of making the girls' basketball books," McCurdy said. "But they still have a state playoff game on Saturday."
McCurdy is thorough and will hold off with putting the finishing touches on the girls' books until the season is officially over. However, that could be awhile as the girls are expected to do well in the District 10 playoffs.
McCurdy, a 1979 graduate of Slippery Rock High, never had children of her own, but loves to go to the games and give the children something that will help them remember their senior year.
Her parents always have been supportive of her hobby. In the 1980s she started taking pictures at games but she wasn't putting them in books yet. Then her late father, Arthur, bought her a 35 mm camera in 1991 and she's been using it to shoot photographs for scrapbooks ever since. Her mother Helen helps her cut out the news articles, a job that seems endless at times.
"When you've got 10 games and 11 kids, that adds up with the paper, so she really helps," McCurdy said of her mother.
McCurdy buys most of the supplies she needs, and her big expenses include extra film and reprints, which she buys at Walgreens.
Neighbors and parents lend a hand too, whether it be letting Arleen use their computers to look up team schedules, or giving her a disk with photos from a game she missed.
Sometimes she has to grab a neighbor's newspaper to cut out articles that are written back- to-back on a page.
"A lady gives me the Franklin papers when we play Franklin or Oil City," McCurdy said.
Because some of the baseball games are in Erie this year, she's hoping to ride along with parents for some of the games.
"I like going to Grove City, Sharon and Hickory, but Erie can be a long trip," she said. "Those long drives take a toll."
Her work never goes unappreciated by the athletes and their families, who send her everything from photo albums to team photos with signatures from each of the players. One of the gifts, a photo album, reads "Arleen #1 Photographer."
Arleen was never really into sports during high school, and it was not until later that she started attending all of the games. She often sits on the visitor side at football games and describes herself as "the shy type", but when it comes to basketball games she's right up front.
"In basketball I like to get there first so I can sit in the front row," McCurdy said.
The best part of the process for her is going back and looking at all the pictures and remembering all of the games.
"I like seeing all the kids," she said.
