Stacie “Farm Dog” Farmer.
Farmer and teammates Andrea Larson (center) and Laura “L-Train” Crandall.
Through good times and bad, through pain and joy, play on.
I have a dream.
In this dream the town of Coupeville, its school and its leaders come together and honor one of our own. A young woman who blazed a trail of love and joy, of happiness and gentleness of spirit, of athletic accomplishment and friendship for all.
In this dream, when the Coupeville High School softball team arrives this spring, when Breeanna Messner and McKayla Bailey and Madeline Roberts and Hailey Hammer and many others take the field of their youthful dreams, they will step onto a field named in honor of a fallen compatriot.
Stacie Farmer was a standout ball player in her time in the red and black, and so much more than that. Everywhere she went in her too-short 24 years on this planet, she spread the gospel of Farm Dog.
And what is that gospel?
Bhavuta sabba mangalam. May all beings be happy.
From the mountains to the woods, from the rivers of West Virginia to the Island she once called home, she lived and she prospered by that simple statement. Her passing, on the same day she turned 24, came because her body couldn’t withstand the physical pain of injuries suffered when she was hit by a car while crossing a West Virginia highway with her bike.
Her spirit has never died.
It is still alive in her friends. In her family. In people she met once in passing. In people who never met her but have come to know about her only in the two plus years since that day.
We have very few athletic fields in this town named after someone. The football field honors longtime local Micky Clark, and the baseball field, though few know it, is named in honor of Bobby Sherman, who died from injuries suffered when he was beaned in a game decades ago.
When you name a field for someone, when you put that plaque or sign down and say, “This. This was one of the best of us,” you say to future generations, we remember. We embrace our town’s history, its peoples, its legacy.
We do not forget.
It is a little thing and a huge thing. It is a necessary thing.
It is something Stacie Farmer, and this town, this community, needs.
When young women, years from now, step onto the field, wearing the same uniform Farm Dog once wore, if they take a moment, a small sliver of time, to pay tribute to someone who they will never have the chance to meet but can be inspired by, it was worth it.
If a fan from off the Island stops and asks a local, “Who was Stacie Farmer?” and hears the stories of one of the best of us and carries a small piece of her life back home with them, it will be worth it.
If Stacie’s family and friends (and she was friends with everyone she met) find a moment of solace, a moment when they can see what their daughter meant to others, it is worth it.
We must do what we can. Visit the Facebook page we have had for the past two years and add your name to the roll call by hitting the “like” button.
Contact the members of the school board and let them know this matters.
Do not be quiet. Be polite but be firm.
Dreams come true when you don’t let go of them.
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http://www.facebook.com/pages/Name-the-CHS-softball-field-for-Stacie-Farmer/180461272015937
School board members:
Don Sherman — donsherman@coupeville.k12.wa.us
Chris Chan — cchan@coupeville.k12.wa.us
Glenda Merwine — gmerwine@coupeville.k12.wa.us
Jeff Tasoff — jtasoff@coupeville.k12.wa.us
Kathleen Anderson — kanderson@coupeville.k12.wa.us
Or mail to:
Board of Directors
Coupeville School District
2 South Main Street
Coupeville, WA 98239
Or fax to:
360-678-4834
Coupeville Sports 
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