Champion News

 

Fox Creek ran backwards on Wednesday after a couple of good rainstorms so that the Clever Creek crossing north of Champion was a lake. The mile and a half trip to the Bright Side became a fifteen-mile journey, the long way around, but well worth it. Alice McClure, who had just had her 90th birthday earlier this month, made the trip down from Salem, Iowa with her daughter Carole Brown through heavy rainstorms to spend time with kinfolks and friends in her old stomping grounds, Denlow and Champion among them. Pete Proctor and his brothers were glad to see their Aunt Alice and cousin Carole. Alice and a sister in Oregon are the last two living of a family of twelve siblings—eight girls and four boys. She had some good stories to share including a trip to Heaven from Denlow when she was four years old. She says Jerry Bennett keeps up with The Champion News online up there in Iowa and shares it with her. She plans another trip next summer and her Champion friends look forward to it.

An invitation to a tea party does not come often. When it does, RSVP right away. Thursday’s event out on Fox Creed Road featured an elegant table setting, delicious teas and tasty treats. Friends and neighbors sat around a table sharing histories and stories, current happenings, ideas, hopes and plans. Thanks goes to a gracious hostess and her equally gracious mother for putting the party together. Imagine the benefits of many small, pleasant gatherings happening all across the whole nation, fostering friendship and understanding. Another friend, Ruby Adams, shares a thought: “If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.” Will Rogers said, “We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.”

Champion Hovey Henson down in Houston, TX writes in to say, “My little girl Avery, (his granddaughter) was off to school this week, leaving an empty space in our lives. She was accepted to Abilene Christian, Baylor, Texas Tech and other, but chose Texas A & M because of their traditions. I am very proud of her. Dawn says that I brag too much. Can’t help it, I am totally intoxicated with her. It seems that we had her for such a short time, like it was only yesterday that she was brought to her home at one year and a month from Kazakhstan to be part of our family. I will have to get used to a 93-pound little girl being on the campus of a major university. Suck it up, grandfather. Kids grow up. Love, Hovey.” Hovey is not the only one with separation anxiety as children and grandchildren go off to school for the first time or when they leave home. In today’s world closeness has not all that much to do with geography, but lucky the family that can get together often. Phone calls and video chats are sweet, but they are not hugs and they lack a little of the preciousness of seeing loved ones in the flesh.

Blaine Denlow says she would rather stay working at Wolf Pen Cattle Company than to go off to preschool. She is a mutton busting trooper though, so she will do well. Hopes are that all our Skyline Tigers get off to a good start. They are lucky to be in one of the two rural schools left in Douglas County. It is a dynamic little outfit with a talented, dedicated staff all working to help these young folks grow up to be solid citizens. B.D.’s great-grandfather, grandfather, father and brother are all Skyline alumni. Her Top Hand there on cow farm happened to have a battery-operated impact wrench and just the right socket to fit the lug nuts as an old neighbor labored to change a tire. He was just passing by and thought he could be of help. He was. One of his grandmothers was over in the Senior Center in Mountain Grove on Friday and heard about his good deed. She said she is proud of him and agrees that he is a real Champion—Looking on the Bright Side!