Thowing fire

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!

The

50¢

Daily Citizen www.thedailycitizen.com

Serving Searcy and White County, Ark., since 1854

KICKERS STARTED WITH SOCCER

Three local football kickers learned their trade as kids together on the soccer field. — PAGE 1B

READERS SHARE CHRISTMAS MEMORIES

Readers submitted photos of their favorite Christmas memories, which are published inside. — PAGE 8A

Not home for Christmas

Emergency workers sacrifice personal time for community

An ornament from Croatia hangs among a crowd of other trinkets originating from various countries and states. Whenever she visits a country where Christmas isn’t celebrated, Irene Gray finds an item like a key chain and transforms it into an ornament for one of her four trees. Luke Jones/ljones@thedailycitizen.com

Searcian collects ornaments from across world Gray has visited 85 countries

By Luke Jones ljones@thedailycitizen.com Irene Gray has visited over 85 countries, and with each trip she makes she comes backwithmore Christmas ornaments.

Her intern a t i o n a l GRAY experiences have roots from her late hus-

IRENE GRAY

Moved to Searcy: 1977 Started traveling with students: 1984 Countries visited: Over 85

By Warren Watkins warren@thedailycitizen.com It was Christmas Day and the young Marine looked over the sandbags surrounding him and surveyed his surroundings, holding his rifle at the ready. Except for his battle buddies, he could see nothing friendly and no smiling face anywhere. It was a truly desolate and forsaken sight.

While families around town are celebrating Christmas morning — children tearing open presents and emptying stockings, Searcy Patrol Officer Todd Wells is on duty today instead of with his family for their CONTINUED ON PAGE 2A Christmas celebrations. Contributed photo.

‘YOU’LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT’

band’s work travels. While he helped an ailing dairy in the Ukraine, Gray remained at home, and though she was glad to avoid the blinding snowstorms, she longed to set foot in stranger lands.

After moving to Searcy in the 1970s, Gray became the principal’s secretary and CONTINUED ON PAGE 3A

A member of the Oxner family catches a flaming ball of yarn during a recent Christmas. Each year at Christmastime, the family gathers together to toss these fireballs at each other until the fire burns out. This tradition has been observed by the family for as far back as any of them can remember. Photo courtesy of Wyn Gardner

Ball of fire lights up Christmas Family tosses FIRE-THROWING Oxner family tradition flaming yarn Who: What: Flaming ball of yarn, around circle with no gloves tossed When: Christmas day

By Luke Jones ljones@thedailycitizen.com Opening presents, enjoying a meal of turkey, taking an afternoon nap. All of these are familiar Christmas traditions.

Each family has its own variation of these events, plus a few unique ones tacked on.

But most family members can’t say that, on Christmas, they throw a glowing ball of

fire directly at their closest loved one.

This, however, is exactly what the Oxner family has done every year as far back as they can remember.

“It’s just fun,” said 69year-old Wyn Gardner of Searcy, who has tossed fire since he was a child. “It’s different and it’s unusual.”

A few months before CONTINUED ON PAGE 2A

WEATHER

Today: Today's Christmas forecast calls for mostly cloudy weather with highs in the upper 30s.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy.

Lows in the mid 20s.

Vol. 156, No. 308 ©2010 The Daily Citizen

Cole Howerton, 3, was delighted to meet Santa Claus Dec. 16 at the Santa Hut on the court square, along with his twin sister Kenzie Howerton and baby cousin Emma Holleman, six months, on Santa's lap. Santa is "helped" by Mike Wood, in his fifth year on the job. Warren Watkins/warren@thedailycitizen.com

Tradition brings kids joy

Editor’s note: We’re not out to ruin Christmas for anyone, so give us a break and read between the lines here, OK?

By Warren Watkins warren@thedailycitizen.com You’ve known him since you were a kid, and he has known

you, too. In fact, he sees you when you are sleeping, knows when A. Santa Claus you’re awake, B. Mike Wood knows when C. Saint Nicholas you’ve been bad or good, and, well ... you know the rest.

INDEX LOCAL, 2A OPINIONS, 4A LIFESTYLES, 5A CALENDAR/OBITUARIES, 6A SPORTS, 1B CLASSIFIEDS, 5B

WHO IS HE?

“

He’s Santa Claus and The Daily Citizen caught up with him long enough to find out why he spends hour after hour on the lawn of the White County courthouse, sitting at his Santa Hut waiting for children to come sit on his lap.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2A

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

NORMAN VINCENT PEALE

Minister and author, 1898-1993

Contact us: 3000 E. Race, Searcy, AR 72143, (Phone) 501-268-8621, (Fax) 501-268-6277

”

Page 2A • Saturday, December 25, 2010

The Daily Citizen

LOCAL Service: Workers sacrifice holidays Santa: Tradition brings joy to children

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A

moms fixing special breakfasts and dads trying to figure out how to assemble Part A to Part B — emergency workers will be on duty, separated from their loved ones.

The Daily Citizen interviewed a service man and a police officer about what it’s like to be required to be away from their families on many holidays and birthdays.

Sgt. Arvil Martin

The middle of a hostile desert is about the worse place one would choose to be at Christmas, but many will be on duty around the world, standing between those who would take freedom away from others and their intended victims.

Sergeant Arvil Martin, 31, a Searcy native, spoke to The Daily Citizen from his duty station in Cherry Point, North Carolina about the sacrifices his career requires.

The platoon sergeant has been deployed four times, serving three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan with the U.S. Marines providing security for bases.

In 2003 Martin was on his first deployment, on an MEU — Marine Expeditionary Unit — assigned to float through the Mediterranean and perform various missions. He had just finished a 30-day training mission to Kosovo, and the U.S. was about to invade Iraq. “At one point I was sitting

out in the desert environment and was pretty lonely,� Martin said. “I had just had a child that was born and was missing them. I was kind of wanting to be there with him on his first Christmas.�

Arville Martin Jr. is now 7 and has an older sister, Courtney, 11, and a younger brother, Andrew, 2. Martin is married to Tina Martin. “It was kind of hard because there was no phone out there to use, and the environment was pretty intense so I had to keep focused more on the mission at hand than the actual Christmas itself,�

Martin said.

Martin was asked how he kept himself focused.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3A

Fireball: Family tosses flaming yarn

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A

Christmas, Oxner family members make several balls of 100 percent virgin wool.

Then, until Christmas, the wool balls are immersed in a bath of kerosene right up until the big day. “It takes a long time to make one,� Gardner said. “You have to roll it for quite a while and form it into a pretty well-shaped ball.�

Gardner said his mother would use a curved needle to sew the balls together to keep burning strands of wool from detaching during the throwing.

The type of wool is very important. “Maybe 20 years ago, we couldn’t find any [virgin wool],� Gardner said. “We used something that was mostly wool with a little acrylic.

That itched up our hands, so you don’t want to vary.�

Gardner noted that, during his whole life, no one has ever been burned. “It will burn the hair of your arm and your hand the first time you grab it,� he said. “We’ve never had injuries.

We’ve had eyebrows singed, hair would get curled, but never anyone burned as far as needing medical attention.�

Fire-throwing has always been a big part of the Oxner

family Christmas. “I remember the smell of it, and I remember stories,� he said. “I’m pretty sure the reason they started this was because sometimes fireworks were not available.�

Lisa Briggs, Gardner’s daughter, said she has only missed two fire-throwings in all of her 47 years, once for weather and once for the birth of a son. “I guess growing up doing this every year, I thought it was normal,� Briggs said.

Gardner remembered his grandmother and uncles would unravel worn-out sweaters, then roll them into a ball “a little bigger than a softball and a little smaller than a cabbage,� Gardner said.

On Christmas evening, the whole family gathers outside and a circle forms. The ball of fire is tossed in the air to the next closest participant, who catches it, typically without gloves. Then he or she tosses it to the next person in the circle. “There are a lot of people there, probably 40, but everyone doesn’t participate,�

Gardner said. “Usually we have 10-15 people throwing.�

The family usually burns through three yarn balls every year. Kerosene burns long and

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cool compared to other fuels, so it takes about 15 minutes for one fireball to dry up.

If any family member or friend is there for the first time, they receive a briefing on how to handle the fire. Usually, Gardner said, if someone does get a little singed, it’s a friend of the family participating for the first time.

Children are typically allowed to participate once they reach the age of 9 or 10, Gardner said.

Gardner can remember his grandfather participating just a few times when Gardner was a child. “I was young, and I thought he was pretty old — to see him throw it and have such a good time with it impressed me,� Gardner said. “He was fun-loving guy. He enjoyed fireworks. He and his brother used to have fights with Roman candles. Here you talk about how we did things then, we’re so safety conscious now, they’ve outlawed all the good stuff.�

Indeed, Gardner has enjoyed the reactions he’s received from friends, especially firefighters. “It sounds really barbarous or dangerous,� Gardner said. “But it’s really not.�

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A

We found out that Santa’s “right hand man,� so to speak, is Mike Wood, a popular Searcy educator who loves children. Wood talked about how he likes to “support�

Santa. “I’ve done this 10 years now,� Wood said. “My dad, back in the mid-to-late 60’s, was [a] Santa [supporter] in Hydro, Okla. He would come into town on the back of a fire truck and would give out bags of fruit, nuts and candy. I never would go up there because I was scared to death. Until one day. He always wore gloves and one day it was warm and I saw his wedding ring and watch. I thought it was kind of cool and wanted to be [a] Santa Claus [supporter], too.�

Wood’s uncle is a Santa Claus [supporter] in Texarkana, he said. “Having those two guys as my examples has always been interesting to me, so I thought, ‘I could do that,’� Wood said. “I got online and researched a suit and found one.�

Wood said Max Clark had been the Santa “supporter� for many years on the square. “I would go and visit him on the court square and watch him,� Wood said. “Then I found out he had cancer. I saw him at Main Street Cafe and went over to him and said, “How much longer are you going to be [a] Santa Claus [supporter]? He said, ‘I don’t know how much longer my health will allow it.’ I told him I would be willing to do it and he said, ‘Are you serious?’�

Clark told Wood he would hand pick him and recommend him to the Downtown Merchants Association and Wood interviewed with the group and was selected.

Wood likes the idea of carrying on the tradition of what his dad did and what his uncle does. “I’ve always liked kids,�

Wood said. “I was a special

education teacher and then a principle, and have worked with little children as a youth minister, teacher, principal and now a professor at Harding.�

In the Harding University School of Education, Wood teaches classroom management and school law.

And why does Wood support Santa this way? “The laughter I have with the kids,� Wood said. “I try to be upbeat and friendly. Some of the kids will come in crying and I’ll just keep workin’ ‘em and get them in without crying. Some of them just never understand, though, that Santa’s OK. I mean, here’s a man that all you can see of him is his eyes and nose. It’s fun now to see some of my former students in elementary school who are bringing up their kids now. I’ll tell the kids, ‘I knew your parents when they were in school, etc.’ The parents will just look at me and wonder who I am.�

Wood says a bronze “S� on his belt buckle is unique, having been donated by Matthews International, a local bronzing factory, on a leather belt made and donated by Calvin Mitchell Leather. “A real funny thing happened when the Sunshine School visited Kiwanis,�

Wood said. “I’m sitting there with a little girl on my lap and she turns around, grabs my beard and hairpiece, and starts shaking it out of excitement. Nothing happened and I wasn’t exposed, but I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I going to do if this little girl rips my whole beard and hair off?’� But some of the conversations Wood has had with children and their families have been serious. “I guess the thing that kind of breaks my heart the most is that it hurts when kids come up and I know their family is struggling,� Wood said. “You can tell by looking at

CORRECTIONS

The Daily Citizen corrects factual errors promptly and courteously. If you have a correction or clarification, please call Editor Jacob Brower at (501) 268-8621 or e-mail him at jbrower@thedailycitizen.com.

them it’s going to be a tough Christmas and they’re wanting something I can’t even afford to get my kids — an iPad, four-wheeler or a horse.

So I just tell them Santa Claus is just going to do his best, and ask them, ‘If you can’t have that, what else could I bring you?’ I’ll ask them,, ‘Do you like surprises?’ and they say, ‘Yes,’ and I say, ‘Why don’t I just surprise you?’ I’m sort of just trying to get the parents off the hook.�

Sometimes children act up when they meet Santa, Wood said. “Very seldom, I see one a year or so that may be kind of ugly to Santa Claus,� Wood said. “I just remind them Santa’s watching, their parents are watching, and, ‘We want to be good boys and girls and mind our teachers and parents.’� One little boy’s request started an interesting conversation. “I want an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot Range Model air rifle!� the boy said. A witty reply came quickly from Wood. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You’ll shoot your eye out,� Wood said. “I just said that because of that movie. He just looked at me like, ‘You’re crazy.’ Of course he had seen the movie. He had that down too pat to not know what that was about. That’s one of my favorite movies.�

In addition to his court square work, Wood does private parties and corporations. “I just did the Eaton Corporation Christmas party,�

Wood said. “Those employees that have kids bring them to see Santa and they have candy canes and pictures, a family-oriented Christmas for the kids.�

Wood will observe his 50th birthday Dec. 27.

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CLOSED CHRISTMAS DAY

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!

At The Birth of Our Savior

As we recall that very ďŹ rst Christmas so long ago, we’re reminded of our many blessings, and we give thanks for good neighbors like you! Have a joyous Noel!

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