By JESSE TEMPLE
jtemple@muncie.gannett.com

During one 30-day stretch two years ago, Taylor Unroe says she actually ran up a $1,000 text messaging bill on her cell phone.

“Due to a mishap in communication between my father and I,” Unroe explained. “I sent 13,000 texts in a month.”

That number comes out to roughly 433 texts per day. Apparently, Unroe had unlimited texting only to friends on her network and not to everyone else, as she thought.

Since that time, however, Unroe has changed her plan to include unlimited texting to any number — which is a good thing. Because as of Wednesday, she added another important phone number to her texting list.

Unroe officially signed on Wednesday, the first day of the NCAA’s fall signing period, to play volleyball for the University of Florida, just four days after helping lead Burris to its 13th consecutive Class 2A state championship.

After receiving the paperwork via fax, Florida coach Mary Wise sent her very first text to Unroe. Now that Unroe’s commit is official, Gators coaches are allowed to communicate with her at any time.

“She texted me and said, ‘Congratulations,’ ” Unroe said. “She said, ‘Welcome to the Gator Family.’ ”

Unroe signed at 8 a.m. in front of family members and said she was glad to finally be a Gator for real.

“It gets kind of old saying, ‘I have verbally committed,’ so now that I’ve signed, it’s more official,” Unroe said.

She was the only local athlete to hold a signing ceremony on Wednesday, but several others are scheduled to make their college decisions official in the coming days.

At Yorktown, Matthew Ring and Bailey Barker will sign with their respective colleges this morning at 7:45 in one of the school’s conference rooms. Ring will attend the University of Cincinnati on a baseball scholarship, and Barker will head to Drake University to play volleyball.

“I’m really excited,” Ring said. “Really excited to go there and go to campus. I’m excited for college, really. Just the atmosphere and everything.”

At Cowan, Justin O’Conner and Cody Campbell both are expected to hold a signing ceremony at school on Monday afternoon.

O’Conner is set to play baseball at the University of Arkansas, while Campbell will stay in Muncie, playing baseball for Ball State.

Campbell said he actually faxed the final paperwork to Ball State on Wednesday but would take part in Monday’s ceremony with O’Conner.

And for Delta, Brad Benbow said he intended to make his commitment to Valparaiso for baseball official some time today, although not in a ceremony at Delta.

“It feels really good,” Benbow said of officially signing. “It’s a lot of stress off my shoulders. The recruiting process is really tough. I felt at Valpo, they had my best interests in mind.”

Contact prep sports reporter Jesse Temple at 213-5807.