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LAST MINUTE MUSINGS: Community effort will send Clodfelter’s poles to Sweden
EDITOR'S NOTE: The goal for this fundraiser was met about three hours after the column was initially posted. The story has been updated to reflect this change.
Some days in this job are better than others.
That’s hardly news to any of you grownups out there, as it’s a description of life more than it is of journalism.
Then again, they are often more pronounced in this line of work because, aside from the routine of civic meetings, we don’t usually report on “normal” events. It’s either the very good or the very bad.
Unfortunately, they often tend to run side by side.
One former reporter put a fine point on it the day one of his first feature stories was published, a profile of a beloved, retiring local school official: “Yeah, it’s really nice, but it’s right next to ‘Local crackhead charged with rape.’”
While that wasn’t the exact headline, of course, it wasn’t far from the truth.
My point, if I can ever get to it, is that this job makes us feel very good or very bad about our fellow humans. The hope is that for all the times we have to slog through the details of an unspeakable crime, we can also relish the experience of documenting a human reaching new heights — sometimes literally.
My story from the Tuesday, July 16 Banner Graphic, “Clodfelter sets U.S. pole vault record for age group,” was one such story, and so much more. The brief version is that Chet Clodfelter broke a U.S. Masters record on Sunday in Cleveland with a pole vault of 13 feet, 6.25 inches. Now he’s headed to Sweden next month for the 2024 World Masters Athletic Championships, where he’s the top seed among men 60-64 and even has a shot at breaking the world record for his age group.
I certainly can’t count Chet as a close friend, but I’ve gotten to know him over the years and found him to be kind and generous. Through their work at Greencastle Physical Therapy and now Athletico, he and wife Leslie have been true assets to this community.
As Allison Leer, my initial tipster on this story put it, “Between Chet and Leslie, they’ve probably gotten half of this town back walking again.”
It’s always been nice that our paper has been able to highlight some of Chet’s accomplishments as a pole vaulter (among other track and field exploits) over the years. Not every community our size has a former Big Ten champion living in it, and we should be proud of that.
Community members seem to recognize it as well, as the 13 comments on Chet’s story will attest. I can assure you that an unabashedly positive story rarely garners so much attention from our commenters. (The “crackhead rapist” stories on the other hand ...)
But it was one particular comment that caught my attention, posted around 10 a.m. Tuesday by user kbmom: “Can businesses and residents donate to get his own poles to Sweden?”
Now there’s an idea.
You see, Chet told me in our interview that when he’s in Sweden for the world championships — as the No. 1 seed in his pole vaulting group, mind you — his plan was to rent poles rather than using those to which he’s accustomed.
While Chet’s concerns over the prohibitive cost of flying poles — the longest of which is 18 feet — to Sweden are certainly understandable, there’s also a bit of community pride at stake here. As rare as it may be for a place like Putnam County to claim a Big Ten champion, it’s even rarer to have a U.S. record holder and even rarer to boast a world champion and (dare we dream) world record holder in our midst.
It’s become a matter of community pride. If that’s going to happen, I have to think his best chance is to work with the equipment to which he’s accustomed.
So, I took kbmom’s idea and called Allison, whom I know to be a supporter of all things community. “Is there some way,” I asked her, “that community members could pool their money and help send Chet’s poles to Sweden?”
Allison loved the idea, made a couple of calls herself (to Denise Sigworth, I know) and had established a GoFundMe effort within a few hours.
And did it ever take off. Donations quickly started rolling in to the tune of $1,770 of the $2,500 goal as of 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Then as of shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday, it was over the top. A total of 49 donors had raised $2,515 in about 20 hours.
I don’t share this because I need any credit. To be honest, I have didn’t pledge a single cent to the effort, though I planned to make a modest contribution before things moved so fast. All I really did was write a story (which is my job, after all) and then make a phone call.
The credit goes to kbmom, to Allison and to 46 other donors who made this possible.
However, I enjoy getting caught up in the middle of something positive. I’ll admit, this isn’t feeding the hungry or taking vaccines to children in Afghanistan, but it is a matter of caring about this community. It’s a bunch of people coming together and saying, “We love this place, and we want to support our own.”
I also love this place, and I love supporting one of our own. In fact, I’ve been on the receiving end of that support on more than one occasion.
It’s nice to see the outpouring for Chet.
It’s nice to highlight something good.