On the first of July friends and family celebrate the birthday of Skyline student Aiden Yager, as well as that of a charming Old Champion curmudgeon up on Cold Springs Road. Beverly Barnhart and Isaiah Hastings enjoy the 2nd for their birthdays. Isaiah is a student and Beverly is a neighbor living just north of the school. Then comes the birthday of our Great Nation when we celebrate the birth of American Independence. There will be fireworks, concerts, parades, great potluck feastings and barbeques all across the country. Local creek banks will be choked with celebrants. A sign posted at the Mill Pond says, “Warning! Hippies have been spotted in this area! Peace, Love and Understanding could break out at any moment!” Virginia Canada, now living up in Columbia, will celebrate on the 5th. Janet Burns, down in Arkansas, shares her day on the 6th with the Dali Lama and with Walter Darrell Haden. Professor Haden grew up around in Smallett and was famous for a number of things including having written “All the Late News from the Courthouse,” a scathing, hilarious incitement of local Douglas County corruption set to music. A great friend of The Champion News, he passed away in 2014. Robert Brown, an alumnus of the Champion School was 79 on July 7, 2019. A Champion grandson, Kruz Kuzt also celebrates on the 7th, though time has gotten away from us, and we do not know how old the lad must be by now.

The Old
The Old		 The New
The New

The Historic Emporium out on the North side of the Square in downtown Champion is a busy place. Commerce is brisk and any day can find neighbors meeting serendipitously or by plan to visit for a minute or a spell. Wednesday’s stories out on the wide veranda involved a couple of fellows who got into it a few decades ago. The fracus started out in the feed room in the back of the old Champion Store and escalated through the store, breaking the front window, and rolling out onto the porch and then into the yard. Their names are still being withheld even as they were from Elsie Curtis way back then, which was a source of much aggravation for her. Just last summer a big guy snatched an ice cream sandwich from a small badly behaved child, took two bites of it then threw it in the trash can with a thud. The kid was amazed. He just stood there with his mouth open. The big guy replaced the ice cream and imagined, as did stunned spectators, that the boy had learned a lesson. In ten or fifteen years we may know.


The New

The Old

A first time visitor to the Historic Emporium was reminded of the Rabbit Hash General Store near where he grew up in Kentucky. Rabbit Hash, Kentucky had a population of 254 in 2020, somewhat larger than Champion. The store dated back to 1831 and was regarded as the best known and best preserved country store in Kentucky. The sign said Tobacco, Potions, Sundries Notions with a big red Coca Cola logo. A fire accidentally started by the old potbellied stove destroyed the store in February of 2016, but by April of 2017, it was restored and reopened. It is to be noted that when the original Champion Store was replaced back in 2011, business was not interrupted for a single day. See a report of “Henson’s Grand Reopening” in Snapshots here. Also find here the video David Richardson shared of the celebration of the new store. Set to music, Ashokan Farewell, you may see yourself in the photo montage of Champions—Looking on the Bright Side!

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