Community Life - May/June 2013 by Community Life

Life

ommunity May-June 2013 Vol. 8, No. 3 The magazine for Johnson County and surrounding areas

Special 19-page inside look at the honorees for the Careity Foundation Hats off to Heroes event FEATURES: Dan McClendon • Dick Helmcamp • John Percifield

Editor’s Note Welcome to the third edition of Community Life magazine in 2013. Since our last

issue of Community Life, our state and nation dealt with two tragedies — the Boston Marathon bombings and the West, Texas, plant explosion. It was a horrific April for both cities. We saw it with 9/11, and we’ve seen it in Boston and West. Every time our nation incurs tragedies such as these, others rise to the occasion. And that is the case this time. Bostonians lined up to help each other and Texans have gone above and beyond in coming to the aid of West. It will take the town a long time to recover. To fill the time, we have several feature stories and a unique special section in this edition. Dick and Patsy Helmcamp have been mainstays in the Cleburne community for more than 30 years. Dick has been an educator, band director and an actor and director with The Greater Cleburne Carnegie Players and Plaza Theatre Co. But reaching Cleburne was a journey for the couple. And then we have Alvarado family patriarch John Percifield. He’s a go-getter who relishes in the history of his family. And the many cars,

trucks and contraptions along the way. Our last story is about Burleson City Councilman Dan McClendon. In his spare time, he’s an avid runner. But more importantly, he’s a pilot who helps those in need through the Grace Flight program. Columnist Pete Kendall gives us an inside looking into Watts Chapel United Methodist Church Pastor Kevin Diggs, who is leaving the country church for a new destination. Lastly, our special section focuses on Careity Foundation and the work by the organization to help those stricken with cancer. Careity recently held its first Johnson County event to recognize individuals who make a difference.

— Dale Gosser, managing editor

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Managing Editor Dale Gosser dgosser@trcle.com

Graphics Director Ashley Garey

Business Manager Lynn Coplin

Staff Writers

Monica Faram Amber Washington Matt Smith John Austin Tammye Nash

Contributing Writers Pete Kendall

Photography Tammye Nash Chris Gill John Austin Matt Smith

Copy Editors Dale Gosser Monica Faram John Austin

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Classified Account Executives Teresa Slade April Bradshaw

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Community Life, the magazine for Johnson County © 2013 by Cleburne Times-Review. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form without prior written permission is strictly prohibited. Community Life is inserted into the Times-Review and distributed around the county free of charge.

Community Life

Table of Contents Stories

18 28

Dick and Patsy Helmcamp found Cleburne and made it their home. By Matt Smith

Family patriarch John Percifield cherishes his familyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Alvarado history. By John Austin

Presenting Sponsors ATHENA Society of Burleson Honoree: Burleson Fire Department Zonta Club of Johnson County Honoree: Cleburne Fire Department Careity Foundation Honoree: Carol McClendon

After two and a half years and establishing many relationships within his congregation, Pastor Kevin Diggs is moving on to another church. By Pete Kendall

Special 19-page inside look at the honorees for the Careity Foundation Hats off to Heroes event

Cleburne Times-Review Community Life magazine Honoree: Mollie Mims Hope Sponsors Solis Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Health Honoree: Sherree Bennett Howard and Sherry Dudley Honoree: Rick Bailey Courage Sponsors The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders Honoree: Dr. Shadan Mansoor

Burleson City Councilman Dan McClendon spends his spare time transporting patients through the Grace Flight program. By Tammye Nash

Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South Honoree: Kari Huffman Strength Sponsors National Cutting Horse Association Honoree: Peggy Cox David and Myra Davenport

Cleburne chamber 14-17

The latest and greatest information from the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce.

Walmart Supercenter No. 42 American Cancer Society Honoree: Mary Ann Wheatley

Community Life

Th e 4

Community Life

Dick Helmcamp has done it all: teaching, band directing, acting, play directing, business ownership and much more

STORY BY Matt Smith

ick and Patsy Helmcamp said they can’t imagine living anywhere else but their adopted home of Cleburne. But such was not always the case. “The first year here we lived in a rent trailer in a motel lot, couldn’t even find a rent house,” Patsy Helmcamp said. “That was not very comfortable and had me thinking what have we done? But then things fell into place. By the second and third year we’d fallen in love with Cleburne and I was glad we moved here, and glad we stayed. We’ve long considered Cleburne home.” The Helmcamps, both educators at the time, picked up rather unexpectedly in 1970 and relocated from Ranger to Cleburne. That plays right into the couple’s penchant for jumping into new things. Community Life

“We were happy in Ranger, had no intention of ever leaving,” Dick Helmcamp said. “I was working on the house one day when I got a call from B.J. Jackson, who was the assistant superintendent at Cleburne ISD, that they needed a band director. Never heard of, didn’t know anything about Cleburne. But why not? Smartest move I ever made, my wife told me later.” Born in a Bastrop hospital, Dick Helmcamp spent his early years in Smithfield. “That was way out in the country then and they didn’t have a hospital so I say I was born in Bastrop,” Helmcamp said. “But my dad’s side of the family emigrated from Germany in the mid 1800s, landed in Ellis Island, took a ship to Galveston then on into Texas with a wagon and oxen. I went on Ancestry. com and found out we’re related to George Washington on my mother’s side. My fifth great-grandmother is Betty Washington, George’s sister.” Helmcamp later moved to, and graduated high school in, Yoakum. Patsy grew up in Seguin. “Her granddad for years owned and ran the Seguin Enterprise newspaper,” Helmcamp said. Both later met at their alma mater, Southwest Texas State University, now Texas State University, in San Marcos. “Probably the most famous person would be Lyndon Johnson who graduated from there,” Dick Helmcamp said. “And no, I was not in his class.” Helmcamp indirectly crossed paths with LBJ a second time, however, while

Community Life

Courtesy photos

Left: A 1967 of the Helmcamp family. From left are Patsy, Monty and Dick. Right: Dick Helmcamp, right, and his brother, Carl, in the 1940s.

in college. Helmcamp majored in music and, during his freshman year, the school band traveled to Washington, D.C., to perform at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. “It was exciting, but oh, you have no idea how cold and miserable it was out there that day,” Helmcamp said. “In between playing we had to keep our brass mouthpieces in our pockets or rub them between our hands to keep from freezing. Otherwise it would pull the skin right off your lips, like that kid sticking his tongue on the flagpole in ‘A Christmas Story.’” The interest in music stretches as far back as Helmcamp can remember. “Started in band in sixth grade,” Helmcamp said. “At first I started on cornet, trumpet then switched to baritone euphonium, which was my emphasis in my musical education degree in college. Actually, I started out in college

with piano. Then I learned you had to do a one-hour piano recital, which you didn’t have to do with baritone. So I switched.” Helmcamp seems at a loss to explain his passion for music. “No idea really,” Helmcamp said. “Nobody in my family ever had anything to do with music that I can remember. Now my grandmother used to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio but my parents, I remember them watching TV when that came in but not really ever listening to the radio much. “I remember my dad saying, ‘You want to be in what?’ when I told my parents I wanted to be in the school band.” All the same, Helmcamp dived in, learning as much as he could about all the musical instrument groups. “Can hold my own on brass, not proficient on the rest but, of course, needed the knowledge to work as a music

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teacher,” Helmcamp said. Oddly enough, for a band director anyway, Helmcamp said that while he appreciates the form, he’s never been much of a fan of strict classical music and never opera. “My tastes early on were more pop and rock ‘n’ roll,” Helmcamp said. “Not Elvis, so much though I like several of his songs, but more Chuck Berry, Little Richard and then the harmony stuff like the Drifters and the Four Seasons; then in college the folk stuff like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary. I like Percy Faith who had an orchestra, but more in the style of popular music. Then in the ’70s, oh man, Chicago was my band, still are, and stuff like Blood, Sweat and Tears. There was a flute player too in the ’70s ... who could really throw down: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.” Helmcamp nonchalantly adds that he met Patsy in college when he was a sophomore and she was a freshman majoring in elementary education. “Oh, he was scoping the freshmen girls out,” Patsy Helmcamp said. “That’s exactly how that came about. Some of his friends had told him the girls in the dorm were pretty.” Helmcamp’s attentions toward Patsy were not in vain. The couple wed in 1963. “Just a few months before Kennedy was assassinated,” Helmcamp said. “If we can hold on to it we’ll celebrate 50 years in July.”

Community Life

An education background The couple taught in school districts in Lockhart, Kountze and Ranger before settling in at Cleburne. At CISD, Patsy taught at Santa Fe and Coleman elementary schools while Dick taught at Cleburne High School. A successful run to say the least. Under Helmcamp’s tutelage CHS bands racked up accolades, including trips to state competition all but one year, winning the Governor’s Cup in 1987 and a summer of ’88 trek to Australia. “They were celebrating 150 years,” Helmcamp said. “There, what’s it called, sesquicentennial and the Australian government for whatever reason selected several Texas bands. So 132 kids and a bus full of Cleburne residents who went along for the trip on this 16-day tour of Australia.” The band performed numbers from “Jesus Christ Superstar,” their show at the time. “We played the expo in Brisbane where the field had this big picture of the sun, which had a face on it and with sun rays coming off it, but no yard lines [which marching bands

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10 paGes â?&#x161; VoluMe 103 â?&#x161; no. 19

By AmBer WAshington reporter@trcle.com Stephanie Falter and Lisa Chambers, two concerned Godley ISD mothers, said they are pleased their children no longer wait for the bus in front of sex offendersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; homes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted to know why my children were being dangled in front of

sports â?&#x161;x Burleson and Cleburne will battle at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday at Yellow Jacket Gym. page 6

Johnson Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daIly newspaper

Parents want ISDs to be aware After two bus stops moved away from sex offendersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; homes, GISD parents say work not done

InsIde â?&#x161;x A 53-year-old Burleson woman reporting for jury duty was charged with trying to take a loaded .32-caliber handgun into a Fort Worth courthouse. page 3

a sex offender like a piece of candy,â&#x20AC;? Chambers said Wednesday, two days after her childrensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bus stop was moved from across the street â&#x20AC;&#x201D; where a registered sex offender lives â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to in front of her house. There was not always an issue with the bus stop, Chambers said. Up until two years ago, it was in front of her home. But when a neighbor placed large trash containers near the original bus stop, the district abruptly changed the stop to the sex offenderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s driveway, she

said. The man is charged with indecent sexual contact with a 7-yearold child. The districtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reasoning, Chambers said she was told, was that the bus driver did not have a clear line of sight when students entered or exited the bus because of the containers. Transportation Director Joe Danna said he did not recall the reason for moving the original bus see aware, page 5

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Number of sex offenders increases More than 7,000 names added since June By AmBer WAshington reporter@trcle.com

Now might be a good time to talk with your children about stranger danger. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released an updated list of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sex offenders this week. The

drought no more

survey showed 747,408 registered sex offenders. The numbers represent a 23 percent increase over the last five years, with about 7,555 new names added since June. California had the first registry in 1947 and today has the most registered offenders. Texas has the secondhighest number of offenders, topping out at 68,529, followed by see oFFenders, page 5

Page 4

10 paGes â?&#x161; VoluMe 103 â?&#x161; no. 19

Automated system about six months away

After two bus stops moved away from sex offendersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; homes, GISD parents say work not done By AmBer WAshington reporter@trcle.com

Stephanie Falter and Lisa Chambers, two concerned Godley ISD mothers, said they are pleased their children no longer wait for the bus in front of sex offendersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; homes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wanted to know why my children were being dangled in front of

John D. Harden/Times-Review

about 4 inches of rain in Johnson County on wednesday turned Buffalo Creek in hulen park into a miniature raging river. the rain, which lasted for almost 24 hours, brought much needed relief to Johnson County creeks, rivers and lakes, Johnson County Judge roger harmon said. Below: water in a creek near Bainum Field in keene almost flooded a bridge after receiving heavy rainfall on tuesday and wednesday. In fall, the creek was nearly dry, but now sits above normal levels.

Heavy rains raise water levels

By John D. hArDen reporter3@trcle.com

April showers arrived a couple of months early, bringing much needed rain to Johnson County rivers and lakes. The average rainfall amount across North Texas measured 4 inches. However, Cleburne Municipal Airport reported about 3.78 inches of rainfall between Tuesday and Wednesday, a little less than the amount collected in Tarrant and Dallas counties. Johnson County Judge Roger Harmon said he believes the rain will snap the countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drought that has lasted for more than a year.

City plans to switch trash collection from a manual to an automated system should begin in about six months, Cleburne Assistant City Manager David Esquivel said Tuesday night. Cleburne City Council members the same night approved the purchase of garbage trucks and trash containers for residents through the Texas Buyboard at a cost of $1,045,805.34. That cost includes a $500,000 down payment funded through the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s equipment fund. The remainder will be financed over five years through Community Bank at a rate of 2.46 percent. The price also includes purchase of equipment to retrofit two of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s existing garbage trucks into automated trucks. After the new system is enacted, trash collections will drop from six routes to three citywide. Esquivel said the city will probably phase the new system in one route at a time. Under the system residents will place their city-supplied containers curbside to be collected by the automated trucks. Changing from a manual to an automated system will improve worker safety as only one worker will be required per truck, city officials said. That worker will rarely have to get out

sports â?&#x161;x Burleson and Cleburne will battle at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday at Yellow Jacket Gym. page 6

75Â˘ weekdays â&#x20AC;&#x201D; $1.50 sundays

Number of sex offenders increases

More than 7,000 names added since June By AmBer WAshington reporter@trcle.com

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see oFFenders, page 5

Council approves trash truck purchases Automated system about six months away By mAtt smith

msmith@trcle.com

see raIns, page 5

see trash, page 5

John D. Harden/Times-Review

Heavy rains raise water levels

By John D. hArDen reporter3@trcle.com

By mAtt smith

msmith@trcle.com

InsIde â?&#x161;x A 53-year-old Burleson woman reporting for jury duty was charged with trying to take a loaded .32-caliber handgun into a Fort Worth courthouse. page 3

Johnson Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daIly newspaper

Parents want ISDs to be aware

Council approves trash truck purchases

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thursday

January 26, 2012

Rain related incidents mild, Cleburne rescue workers say No serious injuries reported By mAtt smith

msmith@trcle.com

Heavy rainfall Tuesday and Wednesday spurred several calls to the Cleburne police and fire departments, but resulted in no serious injuries or damage, officials said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We had some vehicles off the road, motorists stranded and calls of tree limbs down,â&#x20AC;? CPD Deputy Chief Amy Knoll said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But no major incidents.â&#x20AC;? Cleburne firefighters responded to as-

sist Alvarado firefighters on a swift-water rescue at 6:38 a.m. Wednesday near county roads 607 and 508. A car washed off the road with people trapped inside. Alvarado firefighters managed to safely extract the people from the car before Cleburne firefighters arrived. Cleburne firefighters responded about 8 a.m. the same morning to Pipeline Road after a womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s car became stuck in high water. The car stalled after being driven into high water, CFD Assistant Chief Randy Jenkins said. The woman suffered no injuries and firefighters removed her without incident.

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The Johnson County Emergency Services District No. 1 dispatched six weather-related calls as of 11 a.m. Wednesday. Three involved vehicles stuck in high water, one involved a tree in a roadway, another a transformer fire and the last the loss of power in Lillian. None of the calls involved injuries. Another Wednesday morning vehicle accident was not weather related. Cleburne police and firefighters responded at 5:43 a.m. to the intersection of East Henderson and Oran streets. The see MIld, page 5

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a sign warns drivers to turn around as water from Buffalo Creek rushes over the lowwater crossing on smith street. rescue workers reported several street closures on wednesday because of high water. Matt Smith/ Times-Review

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Community Life

Courtesy photos

Dick Helmcamp estimates he’s acted in or directed about 75 plays for the Greater Cleburne Carnegie Players and Plaza Theatre Co. Some of the plays were, from top, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Oliver,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Over the River and Through the Woods.”

Community Life

use to determine where to go, turn and so forth].” Helmcamp said. “So before we left I got white shoe polish and drew that picture on our practice field. So I’m out there telling [band members] ‘Turn right at the left eyeball.’” Helmcamp’s son, Monty Helmcamp, chuckled at the story. “Not unusual at all,” Monty Helmcamp said. “He did that all the time. I remember he had a big piece of plywood at home that looked like the football field and he’d design his half time shows on that. He had all these stickpins and would go through the music beat by beat, placing them on the board where he wanted the [band members] and design his show that way.” Both Monty and his sister, Tracy Moralez, went on to play in band, Monty playing trombone, Tracy playing alto sax. Monty said his father’s love of music may well have influenced his sister and him. “Maybe,” Monty Helmcamp said. “My parents were always supportive of my sister and me, didn’t always agree with us, but always supported us 100 percent. But really I’d been involved in the high school band for as long as I can remember, way before high school. Back when they had the flags and rifles I was kind of, I guess, what you’d call a roadie going back to middle and elementary school. If a [student] dropped a rifle they couldn’t pick it up so I’d run out and pick it up. “Then, during football games, it was my job to go under the stands and get all the purses, shoes, mouthpieces, all

that stuff that would drop through the stands. “Later I sang in a Cleburne choral group with dad for a while because he used to sing at weddings, funerals and events.” Taking it to the stage Dick Helmcamp’s foray into live theater proved in many ways as out of the blue as his move to Cleburne all those years ago. The forum, at the time, was four-year-old Greater Cleburne Carnegie Players. “I’d acted in a couple of things,” Helmcamp said. “Couple of high school one-act plays that went to state and in college the choir and band put some musicals on. At an opera fest held in San Antonio, our college band played behind [the singers]. Even though I said I don’t much care for opera, that was fun, to be playing in it. “But not really thought about acting and then, one day, the drama teacher at CHS, Dan Duke, who’d become involved with Carnegie asked me if I’d be interested.” Helmcamp first appeared in Carnegie’s 1982 production of “Inherent Legacy,” a play penned by local residents David and Susan Carter, which Helmcamp recalls as being sort of a history of Johnson County. By Helmcamp’s estimate he went on to tread the boards in 35 or so Carnegie productions and direct about another 25. “Total, if you count everything, acting, directing, shows where I had back-

stage technical or publicity roles, I think it comes to 76 shows,â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp said. Patsy Helmcamp joined in as well. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Patsyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a huge help through the years,â&#x20AC;? Carnegie Board President Barry Swindall said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She helped get the Carnegie Guild up and running with the concession, fundraisers, house management and all.â&#x20AC;? A love of local theater that stops short of the stage. â&#x20AC;&#x153;No, no,â&#x20AC;? Patsy Helmcamp said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I love Carnegie and helping out through volunteering, but never wanted to be on stage. I leave that part to Dick. I just had no interest in going through all the practices. I just like to see the finished product, so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m quite happy to remain a

volunteer. Anyway, when Dickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doing a show I get my time at home alone.â&#x20AC;? Swindall called both an asset to Carnegie. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re both among the longest running participants with Carnegie,â&#x20AC;? Swindall said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My first Carnegie show was â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A Christmas Carolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in 2000, which Dick directed. My favorite show was when he played Fagin in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Oliver.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x153;To get him into makeup and that wig took forever. Anyway, someone said he looked like the Burger King guy and Burger King heard about that somehow and brought free hamburgers to our cast party.â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp said he never felt the pull of auditioning for shows at the Fort

Worth and Dallas theaters and, save a show or two in Granbury, never performed outside of Cleburne. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Well, when I had the teaching job and then thinking of all the driving back and forth,â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The performances arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bad, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to deal with driving to all the rehearsals.â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp experienced no such qualms jumping on board when the upstart Plaza Theatre Co. established a second theater troupe in town. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve really enjoyed working with those good folks,â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done seven or eight Plaza shows either as an actor or musical director.â&#x20AC;? Helmcamp calls Plaza a complement to, not an intrusion upon, Carnegie.

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“The competition has helped both groups so much, and been a boon to the community to have two theater groups in town,” Helmcamp said. “It’s also helped logistically. We’ve shared costumes, props. I’m sure it helped Plaza starting out since I know they’ve used actors they knew before they got here, but there were also local actors already here.” Sentiments shared by Plaza Artistic Director JaceSon Barrus. “In the beginning and since, we’ve been blessed with a rich pool of local talent that was in place because of all the great work Carnegie had been doing,” Barrus said. “And Dick was a big part of things for us. From the day we opened he’s brought his talents and skills and been very supportive of us, and our productions have been better served through being associated with him.” Viva! Dick Helmcamp retired from CHS in 1994 and, though he still enjoys listening to music, that was that. “Still play?” Helmcamp said. “No, not really. It was wonderful, but once I retired I pretty much hung up my baton.” Freedom from work led to another unexpected life change. “We wanted to travel and just took off with no real idea, no plans really, just on a lark,” Helmcamp said. The peripatetic couple wound up moving to Las Vegas. “I got a job dealing blackjack four days a week,” Helmcamp said. “You’d deal for an hour, get a 20-minute break.

Community Life

Met lots of interesting people to say the least. It also gave Patsy and me time to enjoy a lot of traveling, went through California, Utah, Nevada, just beautiful country.” Dick Helmcamp’s neck problems led to the decision to return home. “Vegas was lots of fun,” Patsy Helmcamp said. “But in the end we thought about where we want to retire and figured why not Cleburne? After all, we love it here.” Read all about it Back in town, the Helmcamps reinvolved themselves with Carnegie and yet a new life adventure. “Like encyclopedia, then pedia is Greek and recycle, like selling used books, so Recyclopedia, that’s where the name came from,” Helmcamp said.

From 1997 to 2012 the Helmcamp’s operated the used bookstore on Ridgeway Drive in Cleburne. An experience Dick Helmcamp said was wonderful, until it wasn’t. “It was a dandy experience overall,” Helmcamp said. “But, by 2012, it just wasn’t as profitable as it had been. You know, Kindles and E-readers and Amazon. And by that point, we’d had fun with it, but I just didn’t want to be tied down to it anymore.” The Helmcamps sold off their stock, donated quite a bit of it to a church thrift store in Whitney, and closed the book on that particular chapter of life. “The last week or so we just had a sale, fill a sack for $5, got rid of tons of stuff that way,” Helmcamp said. “Finally got down to everything but me, the computer and the dog.”

Courtesy photo

Dick and Patsy Helmcamp with their grandchildren. Front row, from left, are Kendall, Lena, Patsy and Hayden. Back row, from left, are Nolan, Dick and Devin.

The sell left the Helmcamps free to enjoy their five grandchildren and go camping and traveling. “Just got an RV about a year ago,” Dick Helmcamp said. Dick Helmcamp said he also enjoys time to read, historical fiction novels mainly mixed with some fantasy and suspense and watch movies. “I like the historic-type movies, when they’re based on fact,” Helmcamp said. “Not the ones with a lot of junk in there, and I like the big epics, ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Star Wars,’ those type movies. Patsy and me made it a point to try to see all the movies nominated for Academy Awards.” The Helmcamps also remain active in Carnegie. Dick Helmcamp appeared in their recent production of “Over the River.” “Still want to stay active,” Helmcamp said. “You slow down somewhat and can’t do as much as you used to, but we plan to stay involved for as long as we can.”

Courtesy photo

Dick and Patsy Helmcamp in Recyclopedia, their Cleburne book store, with their dog, Tai.

Community Life

Cleburne Chamber of Commerce

Fourth of July preparations in the works Annual boat parade planned STORY BY Amber Washington

hether the Cleburne area, and more importantly, Lake Pat Cleburne, receives enough rain over the coming months will determine the fate of the annual Fourth of July boat parade. For now, the boat parade is tentatively planned for 8 p.m. on July 4, followed by the annual fireworks show at sundown. If rain doesn’t offer enough relief for Lake Pat, Cleburne Chamber of Commerce officials said they will come up with another plan for the parade. H-E-B Grocery, which has sponsored the fireworks show for nearly three decades, is again planning on closing Independence Day with a bang, Cleburne Chamber of Commerce President Cathy Marchel said. “We are very grateful for all they do for the community,” she said. As in previous years, parade partici-

Photo by Chris Gill

The Cleburne Chamber of Commerce’s annual Fourth of July boat parade begins at 7 p.m. July 4, followed by the fireworks show at sundown.

pants are encouraged to show off their best red, white and blue boat decorations. Prizes for Uncle Sam’s Best boat and the Most Creative boat will be

awarded. For more information about registration, call the chamber office at 817-645-2455.

James Hardie. The Making of a Dream Home.

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Community Life

Chamber, city plan concert series STORY BY Amber Washington

he city of Cleburne and Cleburne Chamber of Commerce are partnering to bring a concert series to Market Square this summer. The concerts will be free and familyfriendly, Chamber President Cathy Marchel said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are for the community to have more opportunities for things to do and for people to enjoy Cleburne,â&#x20AC;? she said. Details on the events are still being worked out, pending completion of Market Square. The square is owned by Johnson County and will be run and managed by Cleburne. The first scheduled concert is in July, featuring American singer-songwriter Radney Foster. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are working with producers that have access to bands and things like that,â&#x20AC;? Marchel said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;So we are going to work along with the city in regards to conducting those concerts and getting the word out.â&#x20AC;?

Concerts in Mayor Scott Cain said the plan is to bring a variety of music and shows to the square. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our hope is that this is going to showcase the crown jewel of Cleburne, the historic downtown,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A

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lot of people are working together. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not just the city. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the county, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the local school district and business owners. What weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re really interested in is building synergy and partnerships within the community.â&#x20AC;?

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Cleburne Chamber of Commerce

Leadership Cleburne registration open Class begins new year in September STORY BY Amber Washington

egistration for the 2013-14 Leadership Cleburne class is underway. The class, presented by the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce, takes participants on a journey through Cleburneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, as well as the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, inner-workings. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Class participants will learn about the city of Cleburne, county government and the state government over nine classes from September through early May,â&#x20AC;? Chamber President Cathy Marchel said. The cost of the class is $350 and includes all meals including travel to the State Capitol in Austin. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a really good deal,â&#x20AC;? Marchel said. The classes include an orientation day, city government, health, economy and other classes. Participants also take part in a graduation on the last Wednesday class. For more information, call the chamber office at 817-645-2455.

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Courtesy photo

During City Day, Leadership Cleburne students have the opportunity to go through the Cleburne Fire Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s burn house.

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2013 calendar of events 1-22 12-15 28-30 28-29

June Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dirty Rotten Scoundrelsâ&#x20AC;? Johnson County Sheriffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Posse PRCA Rodeo Carnegie Players presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fiddler On the Roofâ&#x20AC;? Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bye Bye Birdieâ&#x20AC;? July Fourth of July celebration/fireworks display Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;?Bye Bye Birdieâ&#x20AC;? Carnegie Players presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fiddler On the Roofâ&#x20AC;? Goatneck Bike Ride

4 4-27 5-14 27 1-3 TBA 7-10 9-31 28

August Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Bye Bye Birdieâ&#x20AC;? Johnson County Pioneers and Old Settlers Reunion â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Alvarado Junior Posse Youth Rodeo Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man of La Manchaâ&#x20AC;? Chamber quarterly luncheon

5-7

September Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Man of La Manchaâ&#x20AC;?

12 13-28 13-29 20-22

Meals-on-Wheels Golf Benefit Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dear Ruthâ&#x20AC;? Carnegie Players presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Wedding From Hellâ&#x20AC;? Antique Alley and Yard Sale

3-5 5 11-31

October Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dear Ruthâ&#x20AC;? Chamber Business & Outdoor Expo Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clue: The Musicalâ&#x20AC;?

1-9 TBA 22-23 25 15-30 29-30

November Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clue: The Musicalâ&#x20AC;? Brazos Chamber Orchestra Fall Concert Pioneer Days Whistle Stop Christmas lighting Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet Me in St. Louisâ&#x20AC;? Carnegie Players presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Best Christmas Pageant Everâ&#x20AC;?

1-31 5-21 6 6 6-15 7 TBA

December Whistle Stop Lights in the Park Plaza Theatre Co. presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Meet Me in St. Louisâ&#x20AC;? Christmas Parade Whistle Stop Christmas in the Park Carnegie Players presents â&#x20AC;&#x153;Best Christmas Pageant Everâ&#x20AC;? Candlewalk Tour of Homes Brazos Chamber Orchestra Christmas concert

Chamber quarterly luncheon

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Community Life

L 18

Community Life

Living in the past

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Photo by John Austin

John Percifield, left, and a worker inspect a gravesite before installing a headstone at Alvarado’s historic Glenwood Cemetery. Percifield’s late father managed the cemetery until he died at 99 years old, when Percifield “sort of inherited” the president’s job.

“Anything that’s antique, I like,” said Percifield, a retired teacher and school administrator who chairs the Johnson County Historical Commission. That’s an understatement. Percifield, 72, has compiled what amounts to his own museum on the land where family members have lived all his life. Instead of having an old watch or some family photos, for example, he owns the contents of his granddad’s blacksmith shop — hand-built forge, manual drill press and all. He houses them in a building made of boards from his grandfather’s old barn that once stood in Alvarado. “I went everywhere in the world with him,” the 1959 Alvarado High School graduate said. “He was a cotton ginner. Fact, he ran two gins.” Somebody burned the gin, but the foreman’s office was a separate building; 20

Community Life

Percifield moved it and incorporated the office into the larger structure, which evokes an old gas station. Out front there’s a 1917 Fry Visible Pump. The old green and white Sinclair gas pump still has its original glass and also came from the homestead, where Percifield found it, neglected in one of his fields. The enamel Sinclair sign on the building came from the brand’s original Alvarado filling station, Percifield said. Naturally, for a man who has roots, he even knows where the timber his grandfather used to build Percifield’s little cabin came from. “Oak logs,” he said. “They came from timber along the creek. They drug ’em out with mules. “I was 9 years old,” said Percifield, ducking into the cabin, which used to be in town before he moved it to the farm.

“I lived in it when I was in high school. That way I could slip out at night.” Family land The cabin and all the rest are on a farm/ranch near Interstate 35 just outside Alvarado, where Percifield and his wife, Mary, live. Their two adult sons have houses on the place, too. The spread is the remainder of what was originally about 1,000 acres that were owned by Percifield’s dad and grandfather. The freeway, which borders the property, ate up 40 acres, and development has chewed up more of the land. But about 375 acres remain. About 120 acres of the farming operation are in wheat; the ranch portion of the land still has pastures that have never seen a plow. If you ignore the McDonald’s sign and the Alvarado water tower on the eastern horizon, it’s not hard to transport

yourself to the past â&#x20AC;&#x201D; especially when Percifield starts talking about his own connection to earlier times and technology. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is made in Corsicana,â&#x20AC;? he said, peering at the manufacturerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mark on a rusting farm implement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Horse-drawn road grader.â&#x20AC;? A big roadrunner pops up as Percifield climbs into his Ford pickup and makes a looping drive around the place. Scissor-tail flycatchers zip over the prairie flowers, grasses and a pair of decaying Dallas street cars â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the sort Percifield remembers riding when he was young. Even the ants are old-school: the big red ones. Percifield said heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also spotted horned toads on the place. Under the oak trees between his house and a windmill, old tractors, horse-drawn farming equipment and other future restoration projects rust in peace. An eager tour guide, Percifield regularly regales local students with demonstrations.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just collect it and keep it and hide it away,â&#x20AC;? his wife Mary Percifield said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He enjoys it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s his passion. And the fact that he will share it with others is important.â&#x20AC;? Percifieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s interest in teaching another generation what life was like when he was a young man is so avid that he even uses his antique tractors and combines to put on wheat-harvesting demonstrations for students. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We actually use these tractors. In a sense we play with â&#x20AC;&#x2122;em. And I get a satisfaction of showing people who have never seen things like this before,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m just into restoration to preserve it like it once was. I just like to have the satisfaction of putting it back like it was originally. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I belong to two tractor clubs. I also restore antique cars. I had to build a 6,000 square-foot barn to put it all in.â&#x20AC;? The mind-boggling part is not that the retired teacher/school administrator has places for all his vintage tractors, combines and cars. Of course, that alone

would makes him the envy of most guys. The notable thing is that most of it, including the collection of combines, pickers and other gear, works, and gets used. Being a Texas A&M University graduate who studied agriculture, it makes sense that Percifield knows his way around farms and agricultural machinery. But even among Aggies, you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find many guys who keep the roads around their place in shape with a horsedrawn grader; or someone who still owns a 1950 manure spreader his dad bought, let alone one in new condition. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it all that often,â&#x20AC;? Percifield said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;â&#x20AC;&#x2122;cause you had to load it by hand.â&#x20AC;? Not that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all old Alvarado auto mechanic Mitch Muse interrupted a recent tour when he returned Percifieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s red 1965 Ford Mustang GT from the shop. It joined the lineup alongside Per-

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Photo by John Austin

Percifield’s interest in history extends not only to old cars and trucks but also to horse-drawn farming gear. Some of the old implements are still used. Some, like this early road grader, await restoration.

cifield’s grandmother’s 1956 Chevrolet and a 1958 Pontiac sedan his great his aunt used to drive around Henrietta. There’s also a bullet riddled black Ford he calls his Bonnie and Clyde car, an immaculately restored World War II-vintage U.S. Army truck and the maroon 1934 Ford pickup his grandfather gave him when Percifield was in high school. “This car is the one I learned to drive in. I started driving it in eighth grade,” he said of the truck. “My grandfather gave it to me, Labor Day of 1955.” Muse has completed several restorations for Percifield, including the work on the old Alvarado fire truck that occupies another building on the ranch, and on the ton-and-a-half 1941 G506 Chevrolet Army truck. Percifield, who is pretty much a Ford man, bought the Chevy because his grandfather owned 22

Community Life

one like it after World War II. The truck, which the East Texas owner was about to turn into a mud buggy, became a three-year project. “When they brought me that Army truck, I thought it was a joke,” Muse said. Even though it wasn’t from the farm, the Chevy that Percifield bought has a family connection. The bed on the truck he purchased was not usable, but Percifield’s grandfather, John Otto McLeroy, had discarded the one from his old truck. Forty years later, Percifield dragged it out of one of his pastures and put it back on a truck that was like the one the old man owned. But for old, unique and downright funky, his renovated 1926 Caterpillar tractor takes the prize. Percifield’s

grandfather used it to move houses and re-contour terraces when they washed out. The level of detail on the restoration is immaculate. To ensure a good supply of parts, Percifield went all the way to Minnesota to buy another one. That’s pretty much standard procedure for Percifield, who’s hauled old farm equipment back home from as far away as Canada. Not as old, but undeniably unique is another prize set of vintage wheels. “Believe it or not, that was the first zero-turn riding lawn mower,” Percifield said, strolling through one of his outbuildings. “My dad bought it. It was in the ’70s.” Percifield doesn’t confine himself to vehicles and gear, however. He helped spearhead renovation on Alvarado’s

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Methodist church, restoring not only the period-correct paint scheme, but changing the steeple to conform to its original 1904 design. Nor is he the only history buff in the family. His mother-in-law, Dorothy Schwartz, 93, is responsible for the research that brought about 20 state historical markers to the area. And while Mary Percifield focuses on Methodist history, her son, Michael Percifield, 44, is carrying on the family tradition of preserving old buildings. His latest project: saving the 1908-vintage Park Hardware wagon barn in downtown Alvarado. Michael Percifield, who studied architecture at Texas A&M, also designed the building that houses the blacksmith shop and the old gin’s scale house. “He has sort of trained my brother and myself the way his grandfather trained him,” Michael Percifield said. “When we were growing up there was no job we were too good for. We did it all.”

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Community Life

Photo by John Austin

This 1925 one-ton Chevrolet grain truck did not belong to Percifield’s grandfather but he did own one like it. The truck is just one on the vintage vehicles in Percifield’s collection. Also in the 6,000-square-foot barn: a restored World War II U.S. Army truck and an array of renovated tractors.

Actually, the boys are the ones who got their dad into restorations when they took over rebuilding the old ’34 Ford. “Now it’s got to the point that he won’t do anything else,” Michael Percifield said. “We’ve created a monster.” Seeing his dad’s devotion to the past helped spark Michael Percifield’s interest in historic architecture. That led to Michael Percifield’s campaign to save the dilapidated downtown barn, where wagons were once shipped and assembled, from the wrecking ball. “If we don’t step up and take the initiatve to preserve our local history, who will?” Michael Percifield asked. “This is what he’s instilled in my brother and myself.” So, there’s no question of the family tradition being carried on. The torch, however, hasn’t quite been handed off to the next generation just yet. “He’s busier now than he was when he was at the schools,” Michael Percifield said of his dad. “Not only is he focused on old stuff, he is focused on moving the community forward.”

Photo by John Austin

Percifield scoured the country for replacement parts for his grandfather’s old Caterpillar tractor and finally found one in Minnesota. Since the treads on the other vehicle were in better shape, Percifield swapped them for old one’s on his grandfather’s Caterpillar. He was able to have a new roof made in Dallas by a company that fabricated them when the Cat was new in 1926. Percifield’s grandfather was a housemover and used the Caterpillar in his business.

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Visit Our Website at www.burlesonareachamber.com Advertise your business in our newsletter contact: Cleburne Times-Review 817-645-2441

What Can The Chamber Do For You?

FRIDAY 6/7 At Dalton’s Corner

june events

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: BACC LUNCH & LEARN Noon-1pm; $15 SCORE Module 4: Growing Your Sales RSVP: 817-295-2236 or email tking@couchandrussell.com Sponsored By Couch & Russell Financial Group

TUESDAY 6/11 Trinity Chiropractic

BUSINESS AFTER HOURS NETWORKING 5:30-7pm; Free for BACC members Address: 815 SW Alsbury Rd Ste 3

FRIDAY 6/14 At Lost Oak Winery

SALES & MARKETING: BACC THIRSTY FOR BUSINESS 11:30-1pm; $15 Business to Business Sales; Speaker: Scott Sherwin President, SalesMastery Consultants, Inc. RSVP: 817-426-6625 or online at lostoakwinery.com/calendar Sponsored By Charter Business & Lost Oak Winery

FRIDAY 6/21 At Texas Health Huguley Amphitheater (Fitness Center)

POWER OF HEELS LUNCHEON (11:30-1:00PM); $15 Women’s Safety – Bring Your Daughter! Presented By Officer Jack Goleman RSVP to the Chamber: 817-295-6121

FRIDAY 7/5 At Dalton’s Corner

july events

BUSINESS MANAGEMENT: BACC LUNCH & LEARN Noon-1pm; $15 SCORE Module 5: Financial Management RSVP: 817-295-2236 or email tking@couchandrussell.com Sponsored By Couch & Russell Financial Group

TUESDAY 7/9 At Nissan of Burleson

BUSINESS AFTER HOURS NETWORKING 5:30-7pm; Free for BACC members Address: 300 N Burleson Blvd

FRIDAY 7/12 At Lost Oak Winery

SALES & MARKETING: BACC THIRSTY FOR BUSINESS 11:30-1pm; $15 Read Your Clients, Build Rapport; Speaker: Sandra Moore Williams, Face Analyst RSVP: 817-426-6625 or online at lostoakwinery.com/calendar Sponsored By Charter Business & Lost Oak Winery

FRIDAY 7/19 Venue TBD

POWER OF HEELS LUNCHEON (11:30-1:00PM); $20 Speaker: Mayor Betsy Price, City of Fort Worth RSVP to the Chamber: 817-295-6121

Burleson Networking groups

BURLESON BUSINESS CONNECTIONS / WEDNESDAYS / 7:30-9am at Holiday Inn Express in Burleson 13250 Jake Court, Burleson, TX 76028 Contact: Linda Clifton-Becker 817-404-7082

BURLESON MAKING IT HAPPEN NETWORK CONNECTION / THURSDAYS / 11:30-1pm at Sammy’s 225 Exchange St., Suite A, Burleson 76028 Contact: Neal Jones 817-343-2589 rea erce A n eso Comm l r u B r of BURLESON BUSINESS BUILDERS / FRIDAYS / 8:30-9:30am at Fresco’s be Cham 112 S. Main St., Burleson 76028 Contact: Linda Molina 817-447-7371 e r i h Wil7s6028 . S.W X 104r4leson, T .com Bu ber 21 The Mission of the Burleson Area Chamber of Commerce is m a h c a -61 2 e 5 r 9 a to be an advocate for business members and the community 2 son ne: 817-295-619 e l r u b o . by giving support, encouragement and promotion of local Ph ax: 817 www F

businesses through various avenues of networking to share ideas, grow business and help each other succeed.

sherris@burleson.org

ELLEN LARIMORE Director of Community Outreach

elarimore@burleson.org

Power of Speaker HeelsBetsyJulyPrice19 T

Call the Chamber for Details

he Power of Heels meets monthly to showcase women-owned and operated businesses, create networking opportunities for women to connect, and promote women in the workplace. An Arm of the Burleson Chamber, the Power of Heels is chaired by Megan Holloway with Texas Health Huguley Hospital. The Advisory Board consists of Judee Brown, Lucas & Blessing Funeral Home; Cheyanne Davis, Huguley Medical Associates; Tiffany Griffi n, Local Life Magazine; Lyric Lane, Dream.Plan. Live Event Design; Marti Lucas, Lucas Gymnastics; Terri Perez, Looking Suite at Legacy Salons; Devohn Pugh, Your New Neighborhood; Erin Russell, First National Bank of Burleson; and Susan Wise, Vision City. Russ Weaver with Texas Health Huguley Hospital serves as the BACC Board of Directors Liaison for the group. “When people hear ‘Burleson Chamber’ and ‘Power of Heels,’ I want them to associate professional networking opportunities with successful business leaders,” says Holloway. “Our organization is specific in its mission: empowering women for personal and professional achievement and growth.” The next Power of Heels luncheon is June 21st, with Officer Jack Golman of the Burleson Police speaking on women and children’s safety. On July 19th, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price will be the featured speaker. “The Power of Heels is a collaborative effort of some of the brightest and most talented women in our community,” says Ellen Larimore, the Chamber’s Director of Community Outreach. “They create tremendous learning and networking opportunities for Chamber members - both women and men benefit from this group.”

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Warm parting Diggs, Watts Chapel church go separate ways

GUEST COMMENTARY by Pete Kendall

pprehensive about the unknown ... moving down the road to a new town, a new church, a new congregation, almost a new beginning? If you know Watts Chapel United Methodist Pastor Kevin Diggs, 41, you already know he’s not. “It’s not scary,” he said. “When you have your faith in Christ, you go wherever he sends you.” On June 16, Diggs will direct his final service at Watts Chapel between Cleburne and Grandview. The United Methodists are transferring him to a new church after two-and-a-half years. Watts Chapel and Grandview United Methodist will join hands under a new preacher beginning June 23, with the Watts Chapel service at 9:30 a.m. and Grandview’s at 11 a.m. Diggs faces his newest challenge in life with typically steely resolve. He’s been walking by faith and not by sight, as it says in the Bible, since his days as a miracle baby, born with a hole in the heart, mismatched legs and barely more

Community Life

than a hope and prayer. He wasn’t supposed to live. When he lived, doctors said he’d be a vegetable. He fooled everyone by learning to walk in adulthood, a little like a cowboy dismounting a horse. “[Doctors] did an exploratory surgery on my hip and set it in a weird sort of way. If you notice, it kind of sticks up and out.” His sense of humor can be self-deprecating. He had no trouble attracting friends when he was growing up. “I had a good group of friends who always accepted me and stood up for me,” he said. “I always met things head-on. If you want to know something about me, just ask. I’m an open book.” The book was open to a blank page when he arrived at Watts Chapel about two-and-a-half years ago, telling congregation members like me, “I love you. I care about you. If you need me, I’m just a phone call away.” Somewhat skeptical, I learned this about 3 one morning when I emailed him in a panic about a problem I was having

or imagined I was. The phone rang 15 minutes later. It was Kevin. There would be other emails, other calls, other afterchurch chats. He would always be there. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only member who leaned heavily on him. We’re an older group at Watts Chapel. At 65, I’m one of the youngsters. The prayer list can be lengthy. Kevin had a way of reaching out to the needy among us, drawing the congregation together like a tight family in ways I’d seen famous coaches do with athletic teams. While coaches might instruct players to stand solid against the onslaught of the outside world in times of strife, Kevin would encourage us to stand always with God. To Kevin, we were all truly God’s children. I’d heard other preachers say that. I’m not sure how many of them believed it. I remember the morning I told him with a smirk, “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life that I’m sure God doesn’t approve of.”

Courtesy photo

Kevin Diggs, right, in worship service at Watts Chapel United Methodist Church.

He answered with a grin, “So have I. God loves us both. ” To hear Kevin tell it, he learned as much through us as we did through him. “I’ve learned that I cannot do it all.

You have to rely fully on God and not yourself,” he told me recently. “Watts Chapel has been very gracious through all the mistakes I’ve made, and they’ve loved me through it.” Before coming to Watts Chapel, he’d

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held jobs as far removed from the gospel as stage manager of the Majestic Theater in Dallas, where he met and married his wife, Aimee. But heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d always felt drawn to the church, he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never been this fulfilled in anything else Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve ever done. Even in the hard times, the times I was unsure of myself, I never second-guessed it, because God was with me at every turn and every step.â&#x20AC;? When he drives away from Watts Chapel for the last time June 16, he said, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll remember â&#x20AC;&#x153;the love that Watts Chapel has for its preachers. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve heard people say theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never felt the love they feel here. â&#x20AC;&#x153;[Congregation member] John Autry wrote a song called â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;A Watts Chapel Kind of Love.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; There is no other love like it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unconditional.â&#x20AC;? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not that way everywhere, he told me. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because the flesh gets in the way. Being human gets in the way. You have to have the grace and love of God as part of the equation. Jesus Christ is for all of us, not just a select few. He died for all us.â&#x20AC;? He said heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll never forget the way the congregation wrapped its arms around him. Early on, his car threw a rod. A member of the congregation handed him the keys to a truck. Another member gave

Courtesy photo

Kevin Diggs, center, visits with congregation members during the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lordâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Acre.

him $1,000 toward a newer car. That wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t happen in every small church. When he fell and broke a leg and couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t transport himself, a church member would drive to his home in Garland, deliver him to Watts Chapel in time for services and then take him home. When thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a need, Watts Chapel and its preacher have risen to the occasion. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It takes a special kind of preacher at Watts Chapel,â&#x20AC;? Kevin said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to love people. You have to love your congregation.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;In a sense, this was a homecoming for me. I grew up in Alvarado, and a lot of the congregation here knew my grandmother. Delbert Taylor was my pastor when I was a boy. He and his wife [Sue] are members here.â&#x20AC;? It will be â&#x20AC;&#x153;daunting,â&#x20AC;? he acknowledged, to walk into a new church not knowing anybody. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about relationships,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You have to spend a lot of time with people. I like to get to know my congregation and become part of their lives.â&#x20AC;? He will always be part of mine.

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Mission Pilot on a

Burleson’s Dan McClendon is a pilot, business owner and city councilman

Story by Tammye Nash

t’s been more than 12 years since Dan McClendon, Burleson City Council member and owner of McClendon Construction Company, flew his first mission with an organization then called Air Lifeline. But he still gets choked up when he talks about that trip. McClendon had had his pilot’s license about four years in 2000 when he saw an ad for Air Lifeline, later called Angel Flight South Central and now Grace Flight America, an organization through which pilots donate their time, aircraft and fuel to provide free transportation for people in need of critical medical treatment not available to them locally. “I decided this was something I could do,” McClendon said. “So I signed up.” His first mission was to fly a cancer patient from Meacham Airport on the north side of Fort Worth to San Antonio.

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“I flew up there [to Meacham from Spinks Airport in Fort Worth] and picked him up. He was going to San Antonio, and that’s not somewhere you normally think about people going to for cancer treatments. But as pilots, we’re not really supposed to ask [the passengers] about their illness or the treatments they’re going for. “We try to keep it light and friendly. We want to be as professional and courteous as we can, to give them the closest thing possible to a custom airline travel experience,” McClendon said. “So we don’t ask, but if they talk to us about it, that’s OK.” This first passenger, he said, did talk about the reason for the trip. “He said he was going to San Antonio for cancer treatment,” McClendon said. “He said, ‘It’s this experimental thing.’ And I said, ‘Oh, so it’s something that will make you well?’ “He said, ‘Nope. I’m terminal.’ So I asked if it was something that would make him feel better, at least. He said, ‘Oh no, it’s gonna make me sick as hell.’ “I asked him, ‘Why do it?’ And he told me, ‘Because what they learn from messing me up might help someone else down the line.’” Swallowing the lump that has come up in his throat, McClendon said, “That guy had nothing left to give but his last days, and he was willing to give up being

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Dan McClendon, right, and his wife, Mary Lynn, are avid distance runners. They are training for their first minitriathlon in July. Courtesy photo

comfortable for those last days to do something that just might help someone else. Needless to say, I was hooked. I was moved, and I have been moved ever since to keep on flying missions.” Grace Flight McClendon said that in the 12 years

since he started with Grace Flight, he has flown “probably 75 or 80 missions.” Sometimes, he said, he is able to arrange more than one mission in a trip, and once flew four missions in one day. McClendon said he usually averages about eight flights a year, but maintenance and upgrades and inspec-

Courtesy photos

Dan McClendon owns a six-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza 836 TC. McClendon has his instrument rating as a pilot, which allows him to fly in bad weather and at night when visibility is bad. Bottom right: From left, Dan McClendon, his son Jack and his father C.W. McClendon celebrated the eldest McClendonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 90th birthday with a flight in the plane. The flight put three generations of pilots in the plane, since Jack McClendon is a student pilot and C.W. was a pilot in World War II.

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Courtesy photo

Dan McClendon, right, and Stuart Gillaspie are sworn in as members of the Burleson City Council. McClendon was first elected in 2007 and re-elected in 2009, 2011 and 2013

tions to his airplane — a six-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza 836 TC — can cut short the time he is able to fly the missions. He said he flew a mission earlier this year, “but I’ve been having some modifications and maintenance done on my plane lately, so I haven’t been able to do more missions in the last couple of months.” Being a Grace Flight volunteer can be an expensive effort, McClendon said. “Gas is $5-something a gallon. The planes get you across the country fast, but they burn a lot of gasoline doing it. Mine burns about the same as what a heavy SUV burns. The insurance costs about twice what it costs for car insurance when you have a teenage boy on the policy,” he said. “And the maintenance and the upgrades and the inspections, it can all really add up. I am sure some people [who volunteer with Grace Flight] keep really meticulous records 38

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and write it all off on their taxes. I don’t take the time for that.” Burleson City Council It is the same urge to help others that pulled McClendon into volunteering as a Grace Flight pilot that prompted him to run for Burleson City Council in 2007. But his public service began the year before when the city announced plans to erect a cellphone tower in the middle of McClendon’s neighborhood on Brown’s Mountain. McClendon said he and his neighbors all agreed that they didn’t want the tower in their neighborhood, and he told his neighbors that, thanks to his background owning a road construction company that works primarily building and rebuilding city streets, he knew how to talk to city officials and get them to change their minds. It worked. The tower wasn’t built on

Brown’s Mountain, and a year later, a friend was urging McClendon to run for city council. “I told them no, flat out,” McClendon said. “Then I thought about it again, and I thought, yeah, I could do that. Of course, everyone on the council when I was first elected knew me from the effort to keep the cellphone tower from being built. It took me a while to live down that stigma of the rabble rouser from the neighborhood fighting the cellphone tower.” McClendon said that before taking on the battle to keep the tower out of his neighborhood, “I had always had a kind of jaundiced view of people who ran for city council. I always thought they were doing it for some sort of self-centered reason, purely out of their own self interests. It never crossed my mind that any of them were doing it out of an altruistic desire to help others, to help the city.” But his experience with the tower battle made him see a different side of Burleson’s council members and city employees. “I saw that they were working hard to do what is best for the city. I guess I just caught the spirit of that,” he said. McClendon won his first campaign in 2007. He drew challengers in both 2009 and 2011, but was re-elected each time. When he came up for re-election this year, McClendon said he was ready for another battle. But this time, to his surprise, he said, no one signed up to challenge him for his Place 5 seat on the council, which he won on May 11. “I think we have a very cohesive council,” McClendon said. “It wasn’t always that way. But since the election last year, we have become much more cohesive, much less quarrelsome. We don’t agree on everything, but then, we shouldn’t agree on everything. What is important is that we are always looking to do what’s best for the city.” Family man While his job as head of McClendon Construction, his duty as a council member and his volunteer efforts with Grace Flight take up a lot of time, McClendon always makes time for his most important job: being a husband, father

and grandfather. McClendon has a daughter from his first marriage. She lives in Austin and has given McClendon his first grandson. McClendon and his wife, Mary Lynn, have three sons. Jack, the oldest, is 17 and a graduating senior looking forward to a career in graphic design or some other artistic endeavor. He is in a band called 8-bit Odyssey. Sixteen-year-old Cole is a sophomore at Burleson High School and is already making a name for himself as a musician in Applewhite, a band that’s becoming well known around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, McClendon said. Austin, the youngest of the three at 13, is disabled, McClendon said. He is blind and autistic, and is home-schooled by his mother. “Mary Lynn is very actively engaged in caring for our sons, and her primary job is Austin,” McClendon said. “But she does more than just that. She is a very avid distance runner; we both are. We are getting ready now for a mini-triathlon she signed us up for in July.” McClendon said he and his wife have done a couple of half-marathons and three “warrior dash” mud runs. They were also getting ready for a “gladiator run” — an event where the obstacles are a little more strenuous than in the war-

Courtesy photo

The McClendon family includes, clockwise from front, center, Dan McClendon, Cole McClendon, Mary Lynn McClendon, Austin McClendon and Jack McClendon.

rior dash events — this May. “We’re practicing our swimming and our biking right now, getting ready for the mini triathlon,” McClendon said. “This is new to me. I have never done any kind of competitive swimming.” And in his spare time, McClendon sings with a group called Soulful Sound, started by Burleson ISD board President

Barbara Volkman Powell. And he and his family are members of St. Matthews Cumberland Presbyterian Church. It’s a busy life. But McClendon said he finds the time for the things that count: His family, his community, his church, his hobbies — and of course, his work as a volunteer pilot with Grace Flight.

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and

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Present:

areity Foundation and Community Life magazine, a publication of the Cleburne Times-Review, partnered to recognize Johnson County businesses and individuals at the Hats off to Heroes dinner May 21 at the Cleburne Conference Center. Community Life is spotlighting each honoree who was recognized at the event. Honorees were selected by the sponsoring businesses or individuals under the sponsor titles of Presenting, Hope, Courage and Strength. One hundred percent of the proceeds stay in Johnson County for Careity Breast Care Center services. Funds help provide diagnostic services, biopsies, cancer navigation, gas cards and nutritional services for uninsured and under insured women. Jay and Amy Novacek served as honorary event chairs; Chad Eubank served as event chair; and Sonny Burgess served as master of ceremonies and provided entertainment. Beverly Branch also performed as an inspirational soloist. For more information on Careity Foundation, call 817-882-4100 or visit Careity.org

Presenting Sponsors ATHENA Society of Burleson Honoree: Burleson Fire Department

Zonta Club of Johnson County Honoree: Cleburne Fire Department

Careity Foundation Honoree: Carol McClendon

Cleburne Times-Review/Community Life magazine Honoree: Mollie Mims

Hope Sponsors Solis Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Health Honoree: Sherree Bennett

Howard and Sherry Dudley Honoree: Rick Bailey

Courage Sponors The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders Honoree: Dr. Shadan Mansoor

Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South Honoree: Kari Huffman

Strength Sponsors National Cutting Horse Association Honoree: Peggy Cox

American Cancer Society Honoree: Mary Ann Wheatley

David and Myra Davenport

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Photo by Tammye Nash

Hats off to Heroes

CAREITY Foundation selects

Carol McClendon as honoree C arol McClendon is “an absolutely incredible friend, volunteer and an incredible friend to so many,” said Lyn Walsh, founder of Careity Foundation, about the woman the foundation nominated as its Hats off to Heroes honoree. McClendon has “really supported us in so many magnificent ways, from helping with cancer patients to volunteering at events to making quilts to raffle off. She’s just an all-around fantastic volunteer who brings such energy and passion and love to everything she does,” Walsh said. Ask McClendon, though, and she will tell you she’s just trying to help out as best she can. “I’m just a worker bee,” the diminutive two-time cancer survivor says with a grin. “But I’ll work as hard as you need me to.” McClendon, 58, lives in Joshua and is as a sixth-grade math teacher at Plum Creek Elementary School. She has been a teacher in the Joshua school district for 10 years, after working at Lillian Elementary School in the Alvarado ISD for two years and 10 years in the Venus school district before that. And while she has lived in Joshua for the past 33 years, her work as a volunteer with Careity Foundation and other cancer support and fundraising organizations has taken her all over the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. McClendon’s journey as a cancer patient, cancer survivor and volunteer began

Courtesy photo

From left are Vickie Vernon, Joanne Ingle, Janet Lamb, Carol McClendon, Dee Youngblood, Layla Moreno, Debbie Burson who participated in the Lycinda Foundation golf tournament benefitting Careity.

the cancer was under that,” McClendon said. “The doctor told me, ‘Caffeine saved your life.’”

“When they gave me the diagnosis, they told me I have three to five years to live, I’ve already lived two years longer than they said.” — Carol McClendon in 1998 when she found a lump in her breast. “Actually, I found a caffeine ridge, and

STORY BY Tammye Nash

McClendon said that being diagnosed with breast cancer really didn’t come as a big surprise. And she was determined not

to let the diagnosis slow her down. “When you have six women in your family with cancers, you are kind of ready for it,” she said. “So many times when someone gets diagnosed with breast cancer, they get that ‘deer in the headlights look.’ I didn’t have time for that. I was like, OK, let’s take care of this and move on.” And that’s what she did. Doctors performed a lumpectomy on Dec. 1, and by January, McClendon was back at work, teaching in Lillian. She said she would go in to Huguley Memorial Medical Center — now Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South — at 7:20 a.m. for her radiation treatment, and as soon as she was finished, she would head over to her job as a kindergarten teacher in Community Life

Courtesy photo

Carol McClendon models an outfit at an event to help raise funds for cancer research.

Venus. McClendon said she told the parents of her students about her illness, and although she didn’t specifically tell the students themselves, “by the time I was finished with my treatments, they all knew.” “At the end of my treatments, we had a big party. Everybody dressed as doctors and nurses,” McClendon said, adding that she used her illness as a teaching experience for the children. “We used it as a chance for them to learn how to listen to their bodies. I think it really helped them to understand that cancer is not a death sentence.” McClendon said she moved on from that experience, secure in the knowledge that she was a cancer survivor. So she wasn’t ready for it in January 2006 when doctors told her she had cancer again. This time, she said, it was a rare form called carcinoid cancer that is considered to be fatal. “It can go dormant, but it never goes away. It is always there,” McClendon said. “I went home and started reading everything I could find about it, and everything I found was bad. I was in pretty bad shape. I finally just quit reading about it, because everything I read said, ‘You’re going to 44

Community Life

die.’” This diagnosis, McClendon said, did give her that “deer in the headlights” experience that she hadn’t gotten with the breast cancer diagnosis.” “This time, I understood that,” she said. “This time I knew what it felt like.” But again, McClendon said she didn’t have time for the doom and gloom. Her granddaughter, Lily, had just been born, and McClendon was determined to be there to see Lily grow up. So far, that plan is working well. “When they gave me the diagnosis, they told me I have three to five years to live,” McClendon said. “I’ve already lived two years longer than they said.” No one ever wants to have cancer. But she said her bouts with cancer have given her opportunities and experiences she would never have had otherwise. For example, having breast cancer turned her into a runner. “I started out with [another organization] and I started doing the races there,” she said. “Before long, I was doing a race almost every weekend, and I was bringing home a trophy at almost every race.” Early on, McClendon said, she decided to do the three-day Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, a fundraising event that requires participants to reach a fundraising goal to be able to participate. Her students and fellow teachers at Venus Elementary School helped her raise the funds she needed, and she ended up with $1,900. She said she had to stop running a few months ago, because her knees were starting to give out. She she has decided to switch to bicycling, although she still has one race goal to go. “I can still run the stairs and I am going to train all year for the one [stair] race in Dallas. I didn’t get to do it this year, but I will next year,” McClendon said. “And some day I want to run [the stair race at the] Empire State Building. You have to qualify for that race, or at least pay big bucks to participate. Maybe when I get old enough, they will feel sorry for me and let me do it anyway!” Through her volunteer work, McClendon met a woman named Joanne Ingle, who got McClendon involved in a video project called “Smiling Women,” in which breast cancer survivors told their personal stories to share with others fighting breast cancer, “because no one should feel alone,”

McClendon said. Through “Smiling Women,” McClendon met Lycinda Proffitt, a young woman fighting an aggressive form of breast cancer, who eventually lost her battle because she wasn’t able to afford the co-pays necessary to start treatment early. In her honor, McClendon and other Smiling Women then started the Lycinda Fund, an organization that holds a golf tournament each year to raise money for people like Proffitt who are battling both cancer and the insurance companies, she said. The first couple of years, the Lycinda Foundation donated the money it raised to a different organization that was better suited to manage the donations. But when they felt like that organization was not participating as fully as possible, they switched to Careity Foundation. McClendon said she remembered Walsh and her Careity co-founder Beverly Branch from the Celebrity Cutting Horse fundraiser she had attended earlier. McClendon introduced Ingle, the financial force behind the Lycinda Foundation, to Walsh and Branch, and before long Lycinda Foundation switched its fundraising efforts to Careity. But McClendon’s volunteer work doesn’t end with Lycinda Foundation and Care-

Courtesy photo

Carol McClendon celebrates five years of cancer survivorship.

Hats off to Heroes ity. She has participated in the Survivorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Brunch, an event held each year for breast cancer survivors, started by Jim Hatcher to keep a promise to his wife, Joanie, who died of breast cancer. McClendon also has put her skills as a quilter to good use, making quilts that are raffled off to raise funds for organizations and individuals. She made one quilt to raffle off to raise funds for a friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son who was battling a rare form of liver cancer. She said she and her friend â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who was fighting cancer herself â&#x20AC;&#x201D; sold raffle tickets at every turn, setting up an event at a local pizza restaurant to draw the winning ticket, â&#x20AC;&#x153;so everyone would know everything was on the up and up.â&#x20AC;? As it turned out, she said, that was a good thing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The person who won was my oncologist, who was also my friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oncologist,â&#x20AC;? McClendon said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I said then, thank goodness we did it this way so everyone knows it was fair!â&#x20AC;? She has also donated quilts to help raise money for Careityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pediatric Palliative Care program at Cook Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital in Fort Worth. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I like doing things to help Careity because they do so much to help other people,â&#x20AC;? McClendon said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They do good work for the whole community.â&#x20AC;? Some people might see being diagnosed twice, with two different kinds of cancer, as permission to give up. For McClendon, it

Carol McClendon, right, with one of the quilts she donated.

was just the opposite. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Yes, [the carcinoid cancer] really is big girl cancer. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been seven years, and I am still alive and kicking,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think I am doing pretty good. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like they say: What doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t kill you makes you

Courtesy photo

stronger. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You know, every journey happens for a reason. Everything is a gift from God, I mean, look at where this journey with cancer has taken me. Just look at the people I have met. What a gig Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had!â&#x20AC;?

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Community Life

ATHENA Society of Burleson selects Burleson Fire Department as honoree ATHENA Society of Burelson selects

Community Life

STORY BY Amber Washington

he ATHENA Society of Burleson has only been around about a decade, but has made huge strides in serving cancer patients and their caregivers. ATHENA is a nonprofit organization with members from the Burleson area who have received the ATHENA Leadership Award. It began with 11 women in 2003 and has grown to an active membership of 17. The organization’s mission is “to assist women in realizing their full leadership potential, to participate in the community by contributing time and energy to improve the quality of life for others, and to serve ethically; with dignity, grace and sensitivity.”

Photo by Tammye Nash

Community Life

Photo by Tammye Nash

ATHENA members Cindy Aaron, left, and Betty Shelton at the Mardi Gras Gala.

To meet their vision, ATHENA has given an annual donation to the New Journey Christian Women’s Job Corps since 2007, as well as provided an annual scholarship to a high school female graduate in Burleson. The organization also works closely with Careity Foundation, which administers various special needs to uninsured and under-insured Johnson County cancer patients and their families.

the ATHENAs, Engstrom said, with the intent on building a Careity center at what is now Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South. “That first year, we had a luncheon at the hospital and an announcement to say what we were going to do,” Engstrom said. “In the second year, we needed a larger place to hold the event. So, I walked into the fire department on Alsbury [Boule-

them, they are there. They have huge, huge hearts and have never said no. I have never met a fireman yet that I didn’t like.” BFD Fire Chief Gary Wisdom said it is an honor for the department to be named ATHENA’s honoree. “We’re in the business of helping people, sometimes at the darkest time in their life,” Wisdom said. “The Careity Foundation does the same thing, so it’s great to be involved with that.” Wisdom said because cancer touches everybody, it’s easy to relate to others affected by the disease. Burleson firefighters, he said, are the perfect examples of what kind of compassion all people need to have. “When I hire somebody, obviously, I look at integrity, good moral character, compassion and a good work ethic,” Wisdom said. “Right off the bat, when you’re interviewing them, you can tell they have a need inside of them to help people. “You can’t learn compassion, you’ve got it inside. Our gals and guys that work here show a lot of compassion to the public.” Engstrom said over the years, ATHENA has contributed many tens of thousands of dollars to Careity and other organizations. She said this year alone, the organization plans to donate $40,000 to help take care of patients, $10,000 to the breast center and $10,000 for palliative care for Cook

“You can’t learn compassion, you’ve got it inside. Our gals and guys that work here show a lot of compassion to the public.” — BFD Fire Chief Gary Wisdom ATHENA Past President and founding member Aly Engstrom said that the mission with CAREITY has been something close to many of the ATHENA’s hearts, as well as their chosen Hats Off to Heroes honoree, the Burleson Fire Department, which works with ATHENA to support CAREITY. About four years ago, Careity came to 48

Community Life

vard] and told them I wanted to have the luncheon there, at the fire department. We called it the Muy Caliente Luncheon. “The fire department has raised money on their own to support the breast center out here. We are honoring the fire department as our heroes because they are always there for us and always helping out with that. Anything we ever need, if we call

Courtesy photo

Burleson firefighters help out in West, Texas, after the plant explosion.

Hats off to Heroes Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital. That money helps care for children who are living with life-threatening illnesses, many of whom are from Johnson County, she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This community here is really great,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am glad to see through all the years, my dream is coming true. All the cities are coming together as one.â&#x20AC;? Burleson Fire Department statistics Burleson Fire Department was an all-volunteer organization of about 32 firefighters until 2008. That year, four fulltime firefighters and Wisdom were hired. At that time, the department received between 1,300 and 1,400 calls a year. Today, emergency personnel run about 3,200 calls a year, or seven to 10 each day. Eighty to 85 percent of all calls are medical-related. The other 15-20 percent are some type of fire call or other emergency. The department has an honor guard, which participates in funerals and flag ceremonies in line-of-duty deaths. There are also two firefighters who carry on the tradition of playing the bagpipes and drums. Many of the firefighters are specialized in various rescue tactics. Five personnel were sent with a BFD heavy rescue truck to assist after the West, fertilizer plant explosion. That group is specialized in structure collapse. Over the last several years, the department has changed its patch from a simple embroidered â&#x20AC;&#x153;Burleson Fire Departmentâ&#x20AC;? on a background to a design that shows off

Photo by Amber Washington

Burleson firefighters participate in Shattered Dreams, a program for Burleson High School students to showcase the effects of drunken driving.

the departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core values: honor, duty, trust and integrity. In 2006, the department also changed its engine paint scheme from white and red to black and red, the Chicago Fire Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s traditional colors. BFD boasts 30 full-time firefighters and several administrators. Ten firefighters are

on shift daily at each of the three stations, a smaller number than some of the area departments because BFD does not transport patients via ambulance. The first responders are, however, trained in advanced life support. The departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average response time is four to five minutes.

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ZONTA Club of Johnson County selects

Cleburne Fire Department as honoree 50

Community Life

STORY BY Amber Washington

onta International was founded in 1919 and the Zonta Club of Johnson County continues the club’s vision of providing safety, literacy and health to women around the world. Zonta’s International Service Program helps women around the world improve their legal, political, economic, educational and health status. The local chapter was chartered in October 1981 as a select women’s organization of business professionals. Since its inception, Zonta has raised thousands of dollars for many community programs to help women become the best they can be. Zontians have also given scholarships to high school students and women in continuing education.

Photo by Tammye Nash

Community Life

Courtesy photo

The Zonta Club of Johnson County presents a check to Careity. From left are Carolyn Smith, Barbara Yoder, Kimber Zorn, Angela Allen, Beverly Branch, Aly Engstrom, Lyn Walsh, Dena Bartlett and Dianne Packwood.

As a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, the group of women aims to provide developing countries with prevention of HIV/AIDS transmission, maternal mortality as well as other preventative measures, including access to clean water, suitable clothing and footwear.

either underemployed or facing financial hardships through career exploration and assisting the Christian Women’s Job Corps with curriculum and interview skills. Zonta is also involved with local schools to teach students about community involvement.

club’s annual Save the Ta-Ta’z Art Bra event and Relay For Life of Johnson County both educate and advocate for women. “Proceeds from our art bra event go toward women’s health services at Careity Foundation,” Zonta Club President Dianne Packwood said. Some of the money also funds scholarships for local women, she added. Zonta chose the Cleburne Fire Department as its Hats Off to Heroes honoree because of their efforts to help raise money during the art bra event. Several firefighters donned decorated bras over their bunker gear as a fundraiser fashion show in October. Zonta member Sharron Miles said the fire department has gone “above and beyond” its call to duty in assisting with the art bra event, by being so willing to dress up for charity. “If we can do one small part in helping the women in this community going through breast cancer, it’s what we are going to do,” CFD Chief Clint Ishmael said. “We’ve got a group of guys who are committed to stuff that is not exactly in the main line of service, that’s way outside their normal comfort zone. We’re supposed to be the macho guys, but from a man

“If we can do one small part in helping the women in this community going through breast cancer, it’s what we are going to do,” — CFD Chief Clint Ishmael Zonta comprises more than 1,200 clubs in 63 countries, each aiming to continue the club’s mission: “Zonta International is a global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service, education and advocacy.” Local club projects include, among other things, supporting the Johnson County Family Crisis Center, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Johnson County and bringing awareness to human trafficking. The club also works with women who are 52

Community Life

“I’ve been involved with Zonta for the past 10 years, and most recently I was involved as the sponsor at Rio Vista High School in the Z Club,” Zonta member Sharon Corder said. “I was able to work with some of the students on not just community involvement but the impact of Zonta. We were able to work with young people and women and families that need help in various ways.” Much of the focus, however, falls on women’s health issues, such as early detection and treatment of breast cancer. The

Photo by Matt Smith

Cleburne firefighters run about 4,500 calls a year, split between three stations.

Hats off to Heroes standpoint, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s kind of frustrating to figure out what you can do when a woman you know is going through breast cancer.â&#x20AC;? CFD is also involved with other fundraising efforts around the community, something Ishmael said is just part of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;new roleâ&#x20AC;? of the firefighter. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our firefighters do well in seeking out opportunities to contribute to the community,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;None of that is what you would consider earth-shattering or life-changing, but we are trying to provide a service. ... We are always trying to see what the needs are of the community.â&#x20AC;? Cleburne Fire Department The Cleburne Fire Department was established in 1891, at which point all full-time firefighters began being paid for their service to the city. Today, it has 55 employees, including administration. The city also has two ambulances, one of which is staffed 24/7 if CareFlite ground ambulance service is busy on other calls. Depending on the time of year, ambulance calls range from a few a month to a few each week. Each year, CFD runs about 4,500 calls split between its three stations. About 70 percent of all calls are medical-related. The other 30 percent are some type of emergency or fire call. Over the last century, CFDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in the community has changed significantly. Firefighters are no longer simply firefighters, but are now tasked with understand-

Photo by Amber Washington

From left are Cleburne firefighters John Harrell, Neal Flippin and Fire Chief Clint Ismael at the Zonta Club of Johnson Countyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Save the Ta-Taâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;z Art Bra event.

ing and teaching fire prevention, as well as running emergency medical calls and assisting with heavy rescue, hazardous materials cleanup and water rescue. Being trained in multiple facets of emergency preparedness is what allows CFD personnel to not only save lives, but

do it with advanced levels of training not offered in all area cities. Several members of the fire department are being trained to become members of the Johnson County Honor Guard. The departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average response time is 3 1/2 minutes.

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Community Life

Hats off to Heroes STORY AND PHOTO BY Tammye Nash

Solis Women’s Health selects Sherree Bennett as honoree eing diagnosed with cancer can seem like the end of the world. But in truth, it is the beginning of what can be a long, arduous and confusing journey. As a nurse navigator, it is Sherree Bennett’s job to be the cancer patient’s GPS, helping them maneuver the circuitous route of treatment and come out healthy at the other end. “It’s my job to help them through,” said Bennett, a certified breast nurse navigator with the Joan Katz Breast Center at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth. “A big part of that is education. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, they have so many questions: ‘Why did I get it? Why did this happen to me?’ That’s the biggest question.” Bennett said it is her job to help cancer patients understand the role of each of the different physicians they have to see. She goes with them to doctor appointments when necessary. She helps them read and interpret the results of lab tests. If a patient has to have surgery, she can be with them beforehand to help them prepare, and she will be there waiting when the surgery is done. “We’re there with them, every step of the way,” Bennett said. “They have 24/7 access to a nurse.” Bennett was nominated by Solis Women’s Health in Fort Worth. Cathy Wilson, Solis regional director, said Bennett was nominated because of her “amazing commitment to patient care and to community service.” “Sherree Bennett is an asset to everyone in the health care system” working in the field of breast health, breast cancer treatment and the global effort for early detection, Wilson said. Bennett said that the concept of navigation is “relatively new” in health care, having been introduced in New York in 1990 by Dr. Harold Freeman, founder of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention and of the Harold P. Freeman Institute for Patient Navigation. Bennett said Freeman came up with the idea when, after he returned to his hometown of Harlem to practice medicine, he re-

alized how many people were dying simply because they did not know how to navigate the health care system and had inadequate access to the services they needed. Although Freeman began to see success with navigation early on, the idea was not widely accepted, Bennett said, until about 2000. “Between 2005 and 2010, we really saw it explode in the world of oncology. It is a great service. It makes a huge difference for the patients,” Bennett said. And yet, it still is not as used as widely as it could be. “That’s because there’s nothing we do [as nurse navigators] that makes any money. Programs like this are frequently cut but we do not generate income,” Bennett said. At the Joan Katz Breast Center, Bennett said, patient navigation services are completely free — and that’s for any cancer patient, not just those seeking treatment through the center or even through the Baylor health care system. She said she has even helped navigate patients living in other states, people she never sees in person, thanks to the miracle of technologies such as email, Skype and so on. Bennett said the patient navigation program at Baylor All Saints began about five years ago, and in that time “we have navigated about 3,800 patients.” She is especially proud of that fact because she is the one who developed the program in the beginning. Bennett has been a nurse for 24 years and a cancer survivor for 13 years. Bennett and her husband, the Rev. Robert Bennett, moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex 10 years ago when he was called as pastor of Northwest Baptist Church in Arlington. Sherree Bennett already worked for Baylor All Saints when hospital officials came and asked her what, based on her own experience as a cancer survivor, she thought a navigation program for cancer patients should look like. Bennett said she had no problem giving suggestions on what the program should include. But when they asked her to develop the patient navigation program herself, she balked. “At first I told them, oh no! I can’t do

that,” Bennett said. But when she thought about it again, she agreed. “I just started with the things I wished I would have had when I was going through my own journey with cancer,” Bennett said. “I started there, but then my patients taught me the rest. They would say, ‘Sherree, I wish you had told me this,’ or ‘Sherree, you said this but my doctor said that was wrong, that I should do that instead.’ “It was like a big puzzle, and when we found a piece that didn’t fit just right, we would take it out and replace it with something that worked better. We just kept rearranging the pieces of the puzzle until we got it just right.” Bennett said the only real requirement to be a nurse navigator is to first be a registered nurse. She said there are two courses available in the U.S. for patient navigators and that she took one while the center’s lay navigator attended the other. “But really, again, my patients taught me the most,” she said. Bennett also said that her patients appreciate her credentials as a registered nurse and a certified nurse navigator. But it is her status as a cancer survivor that really counts. “When I tell them I am a cancer survivor, too, I see the look in their eyes change. That gives me a level of credibility that comes with being a survivor that no amount of education or training could give me in their minds,” Bennett said. “At the time, going through my own cancer was the hardest thing in the world. But now that it’s over, now when it’s all in the rearview mirror, I can see it as the greatest blessing.” Bennett said she loves being a nurse and the opportunities it gives her to make a positive difference in people’s lives. Even though being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week in her role as nurse navigator can be exhausting, she said she loves her job. “It’s daunting, yes. But at the same time, this isn’t just a job. It’s a calling, a ministry,” she said. “I know I can really make a positive different in people’s lives through this job. When you hear those dreaded words — ‘You have cancer’ — it is so frightening. But now people should know, they don’t have to go it alone. We are here to make their journey as easy as possible.” Community Life

STORY AND PHOTO BY Tammye Nash

The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders selects Dr. Shadan Mansoor as honoree

ighting cancer can sometimes be an all-consuming battle. But Dr. Shadan Mansoor, a medical oncologist with the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South in Burleson, knows there is always more to her patients than the disease. “I love talking to people,” Mansoor said. “I love making a connection with people. There are so many things to my patients’ lives other than just a disease, and I will ask them about their lives, all parts of their lives. I want to take care of the whole patient, not just one organ. “I want people to feel encouraged when they come to see me. I want them to leave my office smiling.” Mansoor is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in medical oncology, hematology and internal medicine. She completed a three-year residence at Boston University and a three-year fellowship at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine, also in Boston. She joined the Center for Cancer 56

Community Life

and Blood Disorders in Burleson in 2005. Mansoor said that while she treats all kinds of cancers, she specializes in treating breast cancer. Officials with the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders said Mansoor was nominated because of her tireless efforts to help cancer patients. Her years of experience in cancer treatment and an extraordinary compassion for her patients make her uniquely qualified for the title of hero, they said. Mansoor is just as proud of the center and her colleagues as they are of her. “We have an excellent staff of doctors and nurses,” Mansoor said, adding that the center does clinical research as well as treating patients, giving patients the opportunity to participate in clinical trials they can’t access elsewhere. And the treatment the center’s patients get is second to none, she said. “Patients don’t have to travel to M.D. Anderson in Houston anymore to get the latest treatments and the best care,” she said. Mansoor also lauds the center’s “First Things First” program for breast cancer

patients, which she helped create, saying the program is one of her proudest achievements. She explained that the goal of the program is to bring all of a patient’s physicians together in one place to meet with the patient, rather than having the patient meet with each doctor separately, at different locations at different times. “Every Friday we nave a conference where all the cases are discussed and all the slides are studied, the test results, the mammograms. Then the patient comes in with their family and we all sit down with them together and discuss those results right there,” Mansoor said. “That way, the patient is not having to go to 10 different offices on different days. We are all right there together, a close-knit team, and we can work together with our patients to formulate and present a plan, so that it isn’t at all fragmented.” She said the center’s staff also works to meet a broad range of their patients’ need, instead of just treating the cancer. The group includes a psychologist, massage therapists, acupuncturists and other pain management specialists. “And we have chaplains, too, of course,” Mansoor said. “We try to take care of everything. The breast cancer program we have through Careity Breast Center here is very unique. There’s nowhere else in Dallas-Fort Worth that has such a cohesive program.” The center’s staff “work like a family,” Mansoor said. “We are a small group, and we are very close-knit, all close to each other. We are like a family, and when we take care of our patients, it is like taking care of family.” She said she knows her patients are dealing with a serious disease and that she takes that very seriously. And while serious and sad moments are unavoidable, she tries to keep the atmosphere as light-hearted as possible as often as possible. “I try to always celebrate each little bit of good news with them, to help them remember how important life is and how important it is to celebrate life, even in the bad times,” Mansoor said. “For me this is more than just a job. This is a God-given calling. I wanted to work in this field because cancer is such a devastating disease for people, and I felt I could really make a difference. You know, people get discouraged. They feel sometimes like there is no hope. But that is not true. There is hope. And I think I can help them understand that and help them find that hope again.”

Hats off to Heroes STORY AND PHOTO BY Tammye Nash

Texas Health Huguley selects Kari Huffman as honoree

ari Huffman knows that God has a plan for her life — even when she doesn’t understand that plan. Huffman was only 37 on Aug. 24, 2011, when, on her mother’s birthday, she was told she had invasive breast cancer. Looking back, she said she can see God’s hand in even that dark moment. “Oh, God was definitely working,” Huffman said, “I found the lump and went to my doctor. He didn’t think it was anything, but he went ahead and sent me for a mammogram anyway. And the X-ray tech didn’t think it was anything either. But they went ahead and did a sonogram and brought in the radiologist to look at it.” The radiologist, Huffman said, “knew immediately” that the lump was likely cancer. A month later, after doctors had found a precancerous mass in her other breast, Huffman underwent surgery for a double mastectomy on Sept. 20. “I know God was at work in my life then. It would have been so easy for the doctor to say it was nothing and not send me for more

tests, so easy for it to have been overlooked,” she said. “God had everything planned.” Huffman was nominated by Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South. The hospital’s Vice President Kent Tucker described her as “a champion for women’s health.” “Since her diagnosis, Kari has openly discussed the challenges she’s faced, including having surgeries and chemotherapy while raising school-aged children,” he said.” She has spoken at events, encouraging women to get breast cancer screenings and inspiring them to face obstacles with humor, friendship and, above all else, faith. Kari has framed her personal journey with cancer as a blessing. She looks beyond her own struggle to use this as an opportunity to deepen relationships and strengthen her faith and the faith of others.” After the diagnosis and before the surgery, Huffman, her father, Dr. Robert Smith, and her sister, Heather Davidson, embarked on a trip to Israel they already planned. The trip, Huffman said, brought her even closer to God, as it gave her the opportunity “just to

be where Jesus was.” Even before being diagnosed with breast cancer, Huffman’s life was hectic. She has been a nurse since 1996. But she switched to working as a home health nurse — remaining as a surgical nurse for her father one day a week at Texas Health Huguley — because working in home health allowed her to more readily fix her schedule around her sons’ schedule. That, she said, became a priority that year when she and her husband divorced. “It’s all about the timing,” Huffman said of her choice to work in home health. “Typically, I am home before school with my sons [ages 9 and 12], and I am home after school with them. And I still get to work one day as a surgery nurse. That’s my fun day, the day that I don’t have any paper work at the end of the day and the day I get to work with my dad.” She also works for a second home health service as an on-call nurse. Huffman said her work puts her in a nice position financially, but that work combined with her family duties leaves her little spare time for volunteer work. That’s why, she said, for the time being, most of her charitable efforts come in the form of monetary donations. “After the surgeries and the chemotherapy, I am just getting better at having some balance in my life,” Huffman said. “I don’t really have any spare time, but God has blessed me financially, and that’s where I can help right now — $10 to a homeless man, or some money to a friend who just had a baby and needed some help.” She also has time for speaking engagements, Huffman said, going when she is asked to share her story with others who can find hope and comfort in her words. Her first speaking engagement was scheduled a week after her final cancer treatment. “God has led me to that, too,” Huffman said of the speaking engagements. “I have spoken several times at different venues. It’s not something I ever really saw myself doing, but if that’s my calling, then I am happy to do it.” Huffman said that while the last few years have not been easy, “even in my struggles, in the craziness of life, God is still present. I still feel him, and I know I am so blessed. I have a couple of bad days here and there. But I have gained the strength — individually and with God — to go through this. “I am a survivor. I am a survivor, and a daughter of God. And I can share that with others.” Community Life

STORY BY Matt Smith

Community Life Magazine selects Mollie Mims as honoree

leburne native Mollie Mim’s record of outreach and participation mirrors Careity Foundation’s mission of community involvement. Mims serves as a volunteer committeewoman with the Black & White Gala, having become involved with the organization about 10 years ago. The annual gala raises funds for health 58

Community Life

Photo by Tammye Nash

care outreach programs in Johnson County and critical needs at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Cleburne. “We generally raise funds over and above our goal and try to purchase something for [Texas Health Cleburne] especially if it’s something that benefits women or children,” Mims said. The group sponsors Mammograms Are

A Must!, which offers free or low-cost mammograms to qualifying Johnson County women, Shots for Tots and an annual luncheon addressing topics of womens’ health, which is free to the public. Mims served for seven years as secretary of the Cleburne Rotary Club. “I’ve been a member since 1987,” Mims said. “Myself and Belinda Linstrum were the first two women inducted into the Cleburne club.” Mims joins other Rotarians to place U.S. flags throughout downtown Cleburne seven times a year to mark patriotic holidays and events. Rotary holds an annual fish fry to raise money for local scholarships and other charitable causes. Mims recently hosted a group of Brazilian young professionals visiting Texas as part of Rotary International’s Group Study Exchange. “Mollie was an easy choice as our honoree for Careity Foundation’s Johnson County event,” Cleburne Times-Review Managing Editor Dale Gosser said. “She give so much of herself and her time to the community.” A local history buff, Mims led a volunteer effort of about 30 writers to compile the massive “History of Johnson County” book in 1985. Mims later collected photographs for and penned “Images of America Cleburne” and is working on a companion book for Johnson County, which she hopes to complete in time for the Johnson County Courthouse’s 100th anniversary later this year. Mims also pens articles for Cleburne’s Layland Museum’s quarterly newsletter and researches questions from people near and far concerning local history. “With a lot of the old buildings having gone away and families having moved off I thought it was important to capture those stories and history before it was too late,” Mims said. Layland Director Julie Baker calls Mims a great asset to the museum and a champion of local history. “When we moved our research library from the Layland to [next door’s Lowell Smith Sr. History Center], Mollie wanted to get involved and was a great help in that we don’t have to staff to always be able to help people in the research library when they need help,” Baker said. “She’s familiarized herself well with our collection over the past couple of years to the point that we’ve designated her as historical researcher in our newsletter.”

Hats off to Heroes

National Cutting Horse Association selects Peggy Cox as honoree

STORY BY NCHA eggy Cox was a part of the National Cutting Horse Association team since June 1998 and a big part of the membership department since 2001. Cox continued to work when others would not, even when she ached all over her body. “She said she would just hurt all over at home so she might as well stay here and get some work done,” NCHA’s Ella Hood said. “[She would say] somebody had to do it.” Cox’s true outlook in life was that she was prepared to

meet her maker, and when he chose to come get her she would be ready. Hood said when Cox was on crutches and struggling to get around, she showed the office that her spirit was strong by showing she could dance on those crutches. “We at the NCHA were honored to have spent a little bit of time with her before her passing,” Hood said. “She told me she was ready and didn’t want anyone to be sad, that she would be at peace, pain free with her lord and savior and that she would see us all soon.”

Courtesy photo

American Cancer Society selects Mary Ann Wheatley as honoree

STORY BY Monica Faram ary Ann Wheatley is a name wellknown in Johnson County for her involvement in the American Cancer Society and Relay For Life of Johnson County. Wheatley started Relay in Johnson County, which will hold it’s 11th event in June. She served as chairwoman for the first three years and has served on the committee almost every year since. Involvement with the event is important to her, because she is a cancer survivor herself, having beaten breast cancer. She participate in Reach to

Photo by Tammye Nash

Recovery, an ACS program that involves breast cancer survivors meeting with new breast cancer patients, sharing their experiences and offering encouragement. She has also been involved with Road 2 Recovery, taking breast cancer patients to their appointments and served as district chair for ACS one year. Wheatley has also campaigned on a state and national level for cancer resolution, as well as participating in the “Celebration on the Hill” for ACS Cancer Action Network in Washington, D.C., and the ACS CAN “Light Up the Dome” in Austin. Community Life

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Breast Cancer Treatment

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Cancer Specialist Careity Breast Care Center The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders

Affordable Quality Care

HONORED HERO

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Dr. Mansoor joins these physicians to create a coordinated team of doctors fighting breast cancer on every level

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Community Life

Dr. Michael Darnell Dr Surgeon

Dr Dr. Nadia Shah Radiologist

Dr Dr. Vinaya Potluri Cancer Specialist Medical Oncology

Dr Dr. Gary Young Cancer Specialist Radiation Oncology

Patient support services provided by www.careity.org Physicians are independent practitioners and are neither employees nor agents of Texas Health Huguley Hospital Fort Worth South.

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