Barnyard Wipeout Contestants
Wabash County – My Step-daughter’s very best friend in the whole world kept sending me Facebook messages throughout the weekend, asking me if I was coming to see her do her 4-H thing in Mount Carmel this week. She was showing her pigs, but I got the impression it was more important to her that I come watch her chug milk, wrestle chickens and stumble through horse crap in some ‘Barnyard Wipeout’ thing.
Kayla Graham and Hannah Speth
Well, I promised her that I would…
Sometime last week…
Before stories started falling out of the sky like manna from heaven…
On a deadline weekend for the wonderful folks who give me the opportunity to do some pretty fulfilling work here; both of them knowing full well that I’ve got a past that is… well… lets just leave it in the past.
Anyways, it was important to me that while they were putting together the print edition, that I try to put together some pieces to help with the website.
A big, stinky spectacle was made of laying the manure track for the three-legged race portion of the course
By the time I needed to leave for town I wanted nothing more than to just collapse in my bed. But this kid… Lil’ Step’s BFF… well, I think she’s pretty special, and I definitely couldn’t let her down. So I dragged a brush through my greasy hair, put on my Mickey Mouse hat and my John Lennon sunglasses, grabbed a camera and off we went.
I don’t really like being in the public eye in Mount Carmel anymore. A few years ago my restaurant failed. After that I decided to visit their jail on a couple of occasions. I also have an aversion to most of the city officials in that town. If you don’t believe me, check out my open letter to City Commissioner Joe Judge about his stupid bike racks on the website.
But whatever…
These kids were trying to find a hard boiled egg in a tub of raw ones… What a mess!
This kid wanted me there, and I’m pretty sure she expected me to take pictures and write something about it for Disclosure.
Ha! Youth… She wants me to put her in Disclosure!
It was actually really fun. But the thing that really made me smile and bring me out of the glazed-eye coma that I was walking around in, was seeing Wabash County Sheriff’s Deputies Derek Morgan and Daniel Hopper standing among the other challengers of this obstacle course they had set up; complete with live chickens, horse manure, raw eggs, and a wheel barrow race. As soon as it hit me that I was going to see them run this thing, I knew I was in the right spot.
Deputies Morgan and Hopper competed alongside the eldest class of competitors, and sat with the kids till the end
At first I just thought it was because they were cops and I used to be the bad-guy… and watching them wrestle chickens or stumble through the 3-legged manure race would be a hoot, but it wasn’t spite or some insecurity on my part that made me feel good. Morgan and Hopper were doing something selfless with their positions as a public servants; something to build morale with these kids… not to mention the crowd in the grandstand.
The race started after competitors chugged a glass of milk.
And hell, after a weekend of sitting at the computer researching and writing about people suffering from serious deficiencies of character, it was a welcome relief for me to see something like that.
Those cops ran a hell of a race too. I would have had a damned fine picture of them bagging a chicken, if some dope hadn’t stepped in front of the cage as my shutter snapped…
The kid’s had fun, I had fun… and it worked. Maybe Deputies Morgan and Hopper should consider running for office in that town someday. Mount Carmel needs a morale boost.
The Deputies stuck around until the end and ran a good race.