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August 31, 2012
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Blue Devils shine with 15th Drum Corps International Title ANNE-MARIE STARK Special to the Pioneer
HOWARD GELLER
MAYOR’S CORNER
A Mayor’s job is never done. I knew that being mayor of Clayton would make me a busy – busier – man, but the last month shows just how much we have going on in our great little town. My daily calendar fairly burst at the seams. Here are some of the things that have been happening, events that make me so proud to represent Clayton: Our third annual Rib Cookoff was a roaring success, with 23 cooks vying for first place.
See Mayor, page 13
Clayton hairdresser faces sex crime charge TAMARA STEINER Clayton Pioneer
Hair By Jim owner Jim Frazier was arrested last week and charged with sexual battery with restraint and sexual molestation of a minor. Clayton police arrested Frazier on August 17 at his salon on Main Street after a four-monthlong investigation. He was booked at the Concord jail and is out on $60,000 bail. According to sources close to the case, Frazier, JIM FRAZIER 44, is accused of inappropriate contact with a 17-year-old. Sexual battery with restraint is a felony; the molestation charge is a misdemeanor. Frazier says he is “devastated” by the charges, but plans to keep his shop open and will “stay in business as long as I can.” The charges came as a shock to a town that knows the popular hairdresser for his community service work. Frazier moved to his present location on Main Street, next to Skipolini’s Pizza after a fire destroyed his original shop in the “little red house” at the corner of Main and Oak Streets on Thanksgiving Day 2010.
photo Anne-Marie Stark
FIVE YOUNG CLAYTONIANS PERFORMING WITH THE BLUE DEVILS helped the Drum and Bugle Corps win the Drum Corps International World Class Championship in Indianapolis this year. Top Row, Emily Nunn, Kyle Peterson and Olivia Hansen. Seated, Alyssa Citero and Tanner Frey.
Five Clayton residents with more than 40 combined years of performance experience played a big part in winning the Blue Devils’ 15th World Class Drum Corps International (DCI) Championship in Indianapolis earlier this month. Olivia Hansen and Emily Nunn, who also perform with the color guard, won high color guard honors with a perfect score of 20. This is the unprecedented fifth year in a row the Blue Devil Color Guard has taken this honor. Memories of performances, travel and practice with their friends are just a few of the motivations that drive members to perfect their 12-minute show. Emily Nunn describes the show as “Cabaret Voltaire brings the dada movement back to life on a football field with flags, rifles and sabers.” Now that’s an image! Beginning Memorial Day weekend, each member must be available for full-time practice
See Blue Devils, page 18
Don Bragg knows the feeling of Olympic glory JAY BEDECARRÉ Clayton Pioneer
Clayton will celebrate the international achievements of two young homegrown athletes when Kara Kohler and Kristian Ipsen are feted with a parade Sept. 15 to recognize their bronze medals at the London Olympics this month. There’s one person in Clayton who knows what those athletes were going through Aug. 1 in their Olympic finals. In fact, local resident Don Bragg can even top Ipsen and Kohler, as 52 years ago next Friday on Sept 7, 1960, Don Bragg won the Olympic gold medal in the pole vault at the Rome Summer Games while setting an Olympic record to beat fellow American Ron Morris. Don and Theresa Bragg moved to Clayton in 1996 and live just a block or so from Main Street where the Sept. 15 parade will be held. The Rome Olympics were contested at the height of the Cold War and it was the Soviet Union that dominated the meet, winning 32 more medals than the United States on the athletic battlefield. The Games came just two years before the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were the last Olympics in which apartheid
South Africa was allowed to compete and the second of three Olympics where East and West Germany had a combined team. The contrasts between 1960 and 2012 Games are staggering. Rome was the first Olympics telecast to North America. CBS paid $394,000 for the TV rights (about $3 million in today’s dollars). NBC paid $1.18 billion to telecast from London this year and drew 219.4 million US viewers, which is 40 million more than the population of America in 1960. A total of 83 countries sent 5,338 athletes (only 611 of them women) to Rome to compete in 17 sports and 150 events. By comparison, London had 204 nations with 4,688 women among the 10,500 athletes in 36 sports and 302 events. Such seminal figures as Cassius Clay (now Muhammad Ali), barefoot marathoner Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia and an amateur American basketball Dream Team with Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Jerry Lucas won gold medals. Taking a backseat to no one was Bragg, the world record holder who starred in college at Villanova University and then competed for the US Army before the Olympics. With movie star looks and a signature
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“Tarzan” yell Bragg overcame injuries to win gold in 1960. He was such a star that when Rome celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Games two years ago Bragg was asked to represent the United States. Among the people he saw there was pole vault bronze medalist Eeles Landström of Finland. This time the rivals compared their list of health ailments rather than their vaulting exploits. Bragg missed the Opening Ceremonies in Rome because his coach wanted him to rest a pulled muscle. “I was there to win not parade,” Bragg says. After missing out on a berth on the 1956 Olympic team due to injury Bragg had extra incentive to perform in Rome. “I was extremely motivated.” It was “hot as hell” on the final night of the pole vault when 13 vaulters competed for the medals. Bragg’s solution was to take a mouthful of water with honey even though he’d been advised: “don’t drink the water” in Rome. Wind in the Olympic Stadium also screwed up his steps. Bragg was aware that favored American high jumper John Thomas had lost to a pair of Soviet jumpers a few days
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photo courtesy of Bragg family
CLAYTON RESIDENT DON BRAGG REPRISED HIS TARZAN YELL two years ago after concluding a speech to the opening ceremony for the 50th anniversary reunion for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. The Clayton resident was the only American athlete on hand for the reunion in Rome. After winning the pole vault gold medal in 1960 he let out a Tarzan yell that would have made his hero Johnny Weissmuller proud.
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