John Harasymczuk, Age 90, Miles City

Somewhere in heaven there is a record player belting out "Chicken Fat".

I gave a salute to "Coach H." on Facebook, but will do so here, as well.

Mr. Harasymczuk was one of my favorite coaches/teachers growing up in Miles City. I had him as a PE teacher when I went to Lincoln Elementary for a year and a half. He was also the H.S. wrestling coach at Sacred Heart before the high school closed in '86. I imagine that a couple of his highlights included coaching Pat Cline to a 3rd place finish at 112# at the state tournament in '85, and then coaching Pat's brother, Tony, to the 98# state championship in '86.

Those are far from the ONLY things he accomplished in the Miles City community. He was very involved and was a big-hearted, old-school-style coach that knew how the get the best from his athletes. He made it to 90 years old - not bad at all.

Here's to you, Coach H! Thank you for everything.

I HATED that song. Still do.

Now I can't get it out of my head...........

As one of the least athletically inclined people in the history of Miles City...I still enjoyed gym class with Mr. Harasymcuk, including the Chickenfat record. It always seemed a lot of gym teachers favored and sort of coddled the jock types but I don't remember Mr.Harasymcuk being that way.

The man is dead so let's just leave it there. But the song nearly put me off Robert Preston for the rest of my life.

“Go you chicken fat, go!”

If you attended grade school during the early 1960s, those five words will either bring a smile to your face or conjure up painful memories of elementary school gym class.

Chicken Fat (The Fitness Song) was written by Broadway composer Meredith Willson for President Kennedy’s Council on Youth Fitness. Three million records of the song were given gratis to schools across the country, urging our nation’s youth to “Give that chicken fat back to the chicken, and don’t be chicken again.”

Read more here.