Champion News

CHAMPION–February 14, 2010

        Champions are always ready to celebrate.  Knowing that the world is full of woe, worry, and wearing winter weather, Champions choose to celebrate in protests of the glum.  The verb “to champion” means to defend and support.  That’s what Champions everywhere do and this week in Champion, Champions celebrate Ruby Hicks Proctor.  She was raised just over north east of the store.  She had three brothers and six sisters and her folks were John and Golda Hicks.  She married Mr. Proctor when she was seventeen.  There is a story in Champion that she worked at the knothole factory until she went to work at the doughnut hole factory.  The knothole factory was the Cloud Toy Factory, which was situated near the railroad in Mountain Grove.  She worked there for a long time and then took a job at the bakery at the Town and Country grocery store.  She worked there for eighteen years, getting to work at four in the morning to get the doughnuts started and things ready to open up for business at 6 a.m.  During this time she was raising children and working on the farm.  Now that is a Champion woman!  She has her birthday this Friday on the 19^th and rumor has it that she will be 85.  Her grandson Bryan and his family are over in Virginia under a lot of snow, but are well and are wishing Ruby a happy birthday.  Bryan is in the service and Champions are wishing him and all his fellows the best as they serve the country at home and in the dangerous parts of the world.  They have Champion Love and Gratitude.

        Ruby’s good friend, Esther Wrinkles, has again provided a beautiful quilt for the fundraiser at the Skyline Area Volunteer Fire Department Chili Supper, which will occur on March 6^th this year.  The quilt is a queen-sized beauty, with a star pattern and a blue lining.  It is stunning.  Esther has also been quite instrumental in securing a great line-up of music for the affair.  Back Yard Blue Grass, Spring Creek, Big Creek, David Richards and Erin Akers, and the Green Mountain Messengers will all perform.  It promises to be quite a night.  In addition to chili there will be chicken and noodles on the menu.  Once again the chickens in the noodles are home grown organic big fat hens produced by one of the fire fighters and his family and generously donated to the auxiliary for this special occasion.  Folks will be glad to find some stationary bicycles in the silent auction to peddle off some of the potential pounds produced by the plethora of scrumptious pies that come donated in the door.  What a Champion delight!

        Even an extraordinary place like Champion sees changes in the population.  Folks move away for various reasons or sometimes they pass away and land and old home places change hands.  It is as if the country is breathing—out with the old—in with the new.  Champions certainly miss old friends and dear ones as they leave and the old stories around Champion hearths keep the good times that have passed fresh in Champion hearts, but hearts open to new neighbors and new friends.  Steve and Darlene Conner have made a home in the place where Ruth Hicks last lived and a lovely couple, Gabriel and Mark, have built that beautiful straw bale house up at the site of the New Old Dogwood School House on C Highway.  New porch lights twinkle in the darkness as people find their way here from all over the place.  So Welcome!  Come and meet your neighbors.  The place still known as ‘the Goldie Dooms’ place, however, has been unoccupied for quite a while.  Even though the original house has been replaced a couple of times, local people still refer to it as the Goldie Dooms place.  The house been vandalized and ransacked and the doors and windows left open and what was a cute little place at the bend in the road has taken on a specter of danger.  Someone said that it had been purchased on the courthouse steps the other day.  Maybe someone will take possession soon.  They’ll find some neighbors willing to help out.  Some were thinking to call the sheriff to see if the place could be boarded up as a way to make it less attractive to vermin, but maybe things are about to turn around.  The sheriff probably is not the guy to call for that kind of thing anyway, but his number is the one to call for a fire, auto accident or medical emergency.  That office routes emergency calls to the appropriate responders and in these parts that is the Skyline VFD.  The number to call is 683-1020.  A firefighter was remarking the other day that the sheriff’s office gets a lot of calls for frivolous or silly things but they’ve got some capable people there who know how to their job.  While Champions hope they never have to use it, they are glad to know the number.  It is easy to remember–1020.  It is 683-1020.

        Back to Goldie Dooms, it seems that there were a number of ladies named Golda or Goldie in the Champion area in years past.  Ruby’s Mother was Golda and Oscar Krider’s wife was Goldie.  There are many ladies of a certain age named Shirley after Shirley Temple.  It would be interesting to know the Goldie after whom these Champion girls were named.  That information is welcome at Champion Items, Rt. 2, Box 367, Norwood, MO 65717 or at Champion News.

        The 20^th and the 21^st of the month will be good days for planting above ground crops according to Linda’s Almanac from over at the Plant Place in Norwood.  The 24^th and 25^th will both be good days for starting seedbeds.  Go to the links section of the www.championnews.us website to see the almanac or go on over to The Plant Place and pick one up.  Charlene Dupre, who is Linda’s sister, runs the Gift Corner there and the kind of lovely items she routinely has in her shop will be much in evidence at the silent auction at the Skyline Chili Supper.  Those ladies are the very definition of good neighbors.

        Dillon and Dakota Watts were down in Champion visiting for a few days from their home in Tennessee.  They like to come down to spend time on the farm and to help out with whatever needs doing.  They are growing up and their young cousins Foster and Kalyssa think they are just the greatest.  They are all good singers and Kalyssa was heard Sunday showing off her skills with the scales…Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti Do!  What a girl!  Her big brother, Foster, has a fan club at the Bank of America.  Gayla Blackwell’s father was named Foster and she said that it is not a common name and she enjoys reading about the young fellow.  Ms. Blackwell should know that Foster is an exceptional runner.  He climbs that steep hill at Champion and then just flies down it.  He almost never falls and most of the time he can avoid knocking down his little sister when he gets to the bottom.  She is a pretty good sport about it though and just figures it to be part of the territory.  She was reported to have told her Aunt Linda that she is always in trouble.  She will be four at the end of the summer.  Champions wonder just what all kinds of trouble she could be in?

        “Trouble in mind, I’m blue, but I won’t be blue always.  You know the sun’s gonna shine in my back door some day.”  That is an old song with some good memories attached to it.  Champions are routinely checking their back door for sunshine and when it does not appear, they go on down to Henson’s store for a little bright spot in their day anyway.  Steve and Darlene just back from a Padre Island adventure brought Ms. Henson a new bamboo wind chime to hang on her porch.  It is a beauty with a haunting melodic tone that brings sunny beaches to mind, a nice addition to Champion—already looking on the Bright Side.