NOMINATIONS DUE
Nominations are due July 10 for the Creston High School Hall of Fame. For more information on who is eligible and the nomination process, see page 2A. >>
SHUTOUT VICTORY Murray freshman pitcher Kayla Wookey fired a one-hit shutout victory over East Union Monday night. For more on the game, see SPORTS, page 8A. >>
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Freedom ride
Contributed photo
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Shown isTimothy Bartlett’s extreme case of club feet at The casting process for Timothy Bartlett’s orthotics leg brac- Timothy Bartlett’s feet and ankles are now at a normal angle birth. His left foot was more inverted at the ankle than his es included surgical tubing to protect him during cast remov- after an April 2014 surgery to clip and reattach his Achilles right, and remains two shoe sizes smaller . al. He had 27 sets of casts and braces before surgery in 2014. tendon, which followed six years of casts and braces.
“IN ANYTHING he does, he just says, ‘I’m going to do this.’ He doesn’t take the answer that he’s not able to or not strong enough.”
Active Afton youth overcomes club-foot malady. ■
By LARRY PETERSON CNA senior feature writer lpeterson@crestonnews.com
AFTON — He may only be 7 years old and weigh 55 pounds, but there’s a monstrous spirit inside Timothy Bartlett. Spend five minutes with the youngest of six children of Joe and Sherri Bartlett of rural Afton, and his positive outlook is contagious. It’s apparent that anytime he’s told he can’t do something, he has a ready response. “Watch me.” Last month Timothy rode his bicycle 12 miles — the only reason it wasn’t farther was because rain shortened the scheduled three-hour event — at Green Valley State Park in the annual Mayflower Heritage Christian School Bike-a-Thon. Timothy may not have ridden the farthest that day, but he was the undisputed champion of overcoming the longest odds. One year earlier, Timothy was pushed in a wheelchair in that same bike-a-thon by older brother Kaleb and several other volunteers from First Baptist Church. That’s because he was recovering from a surgical procedure to correct his club-foot deformity, technically called congenital talipes equinovarus.
Casts and braces Surgery followed 27 different sets of casts and braces from the time he was 4 days old until the day of his surgery at age 6.
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Sherri Bartlett
Timothy’s mother
Contributed photo
Mayflower Christian Heritage first-grader Timothy Bartlett, foreground, is ready to ride in the school’s bike-a-thon at Green Valley State Park last month. Bartlett was born with a club-foot deformity in both feet, but through a succession of castings and surgery in 2014, he is able to walk, run and ride a bicycle. He rode 12 miles in the school’s fundraising event, just a few weeks after learning to ride without training wheels.
The simple pleasures of childhood — running, riding a bike, swimming — had eluded Timothy all those years. As a toddler his legs weren’t developed, so instead of crawling he
pulled himself across the floor only with his arms. He would eventually clumsily walk in his fitted leg braces — recast in a painful two-hour procedure every six months.
But it wasn’t until the corrective surgery last year that Timothy had the breakthrough that pushed him to keep up with his peers in riding a bicycle, running and, most recently, being an accomplished swimmer. “In anything he does, he just says, ‘I’m going to do this.’ He doesn’t take the answer that he’s not able to or not strong enough,” Sherri said. Before this year’s bike-a-thon, for example, he rode the bicycle without training wheels in two practice sessions at parks with his oldest sister, Hannah. “I was kind of embarrassed,” Timothy said. “I didn’t want to be on training wheels.” So, after just two practice rides, Timothy was able to ride 12 miles in the school fundraising event. “He’d get really tired,” Sherri said. “I’d have to massage his feet every few laps. He was tired and sore, but he was determined to get up and go again after a few minutes. I took the training wheels with me, just in case. He never needed them.” It was that same determination that put BARTLETT | 2A
House GOP report faults military on Benghazi attacks
CNA photo by JOEL LAMB
Big catch: Creston Specialty Care resident Floyd Smith, 81, inspects his catch of the day at McKinley Lake Friday afternoon during the institution’s annual fishing trip.
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2016
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Benghazi Committee, in a politically charged report, faulted the military on Tuesday for responding too slowly to send help to Benghazi, Libya, during the deadly 2012 attacks despite clear orders from President Barack Obama and the Pentagon. Republicans have repeatedly criticized the response as a serious failure by the Obama administration and
by Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time and now is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. The panel’s chairman, Rep. Gowdy, R-S.C., said the report was not aimed at Clinton, though Democrats have accused the panel’s Republican majority of targeting her throughout. Republicans on the panel released the 800-page report on the attacks that killed
four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. “Nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost eight hours after the attacks began,” Gowdy said at a news conference. .” The report documents that the U.S. was slow to send help to the Americans “because of an obsession with hurting REPORT | 2A
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