Christmas Comeback

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise From the Rubble

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 17:43:54 GMT

Sitting in her home two hours from Mayfield, Mary Schalk learned about the turmoil just like every other teenager that night.

“I saw it on the news,” says Schalk, who’s now 17 and attends high school in ----, two hours from Mayfield. “I started all night watching the storms, it was happening here, but not as bad, so I was up all night with the storms.”

The next morning, she had a calling to help.

“I knew that I had the resources, I knew that nobody else could really drive the semi-trucks were turned over, the roads were blocked, but the runway is only 3,000 feet, and all they had to do was clear it and I could be there with so much supplies,” she says.

Schalk, who was 16 years old at the time, was well on her way to getting her pilot’s license, but she’d never made a solo flight before. The 30-minute flight to Mayfield wasn’t something she made every day, as this would be Schalk’s first solo flight.

“At that time, I was trying to get my hours in and was trying to fly solo, but I’d never been on a mission necessarily,” she adds.

Within 30 minutes, she had the approval from her instruction to make the trip, and that’s when Schalk got to work.

“Through our Facebook page, we put out there that we were opening the doors to the church and a local community and few counties over. We said that we were opening the doors to the airport and anybody that wants to bring something you just bring it in, you drop it off, and they sure did,” says Schalk.

Compassion Takes Control

From diapers and baby formula to even trash bags, she jetted off with the necessities in tow.

“We pulled over there and the hanger was within five feet,” she describes as she landed in Mayfield “We unloaded everything. And from there people from the city came out to the airport and dispersed it to where it needed to go.”

While her first trip brought the community items they desperately needed, she knew her work still wasn’t done.

“Then we eventually took some Christmas presents towards the end of the month, towards Christmas,” she says.

At 16 years old, Schalk put a desire to help, into action, even if at times she questioned if the mission was something she’d be able to complete.

“Those people didn’t deserve that, and I knew I had to do something to give back to them,” says Schalk.

From Flight to the Football Field

As compassion took flight that day, just a week later, teenagers in a town nearly 5 hours from Mayfield also refused to let the ravaged community stand in solitude.

“Last year, on November 26, we played the Beachwood high school football team of Fort Mitchell, Kentucky .We met them in a semifinal game. And we did not come out victory,” says Kathy O’Nan, mayor of Mayfield.

And just two weeks after that game as the Cardinals loss that ended their season, Beechwood marched into Mayfield with help.

“Here came people from Beechwood, their football team, people from Forth Mitchell,” she says. “They brought money, they brought supplies, they brought their hearts.”

From Foes to Friends

From foes on the field to friends on that December day, after the tragedy, the two towns saw no competition. They were compassionate peers who did what they can to aid Mayfield.

“They brought their help,” says O’Nan. “That’s a pretty cool thing.”

What O’nan describes as a football school, the Mayfield Cardinals fought the entire season this year to bring joy to this community, and help Mayfield heal. And that’s exactly what they did.

“We have the fourth best winning record in the whole United States. That’s a wow for our little school,” says O’Nan.

Honorable Rivals, Forever Friends

The Mayfield Cardinals made it to the class 2A state championship football game this month, and you’ll never guess who they met once again: Beechwood High School, with the two mayors documenting the emotional occasion before the game.

“He and I are going to meet on the field and we have a presentation to give to the city of Fort Mitchell and Beechwood High School. This is very special,” says O’Nan.

The plaque said, “Honorable Rivals, Forever Friends,” a fitting tribute from a town that became unexpected friends.

Lessons Off the Field

With all the acts of kindness this past year, what the teenagers have earned can’t be taught in a classroom or coached on a football field. Instead, it’s been a year full of life lessons of how to be selfless servants in times of dire need.

“You’re not sitting them down and saying this is how you treat people. They are witnessing it,” says O’Nan. “They are witnessing it by doing it. And by seeing how we help each other, and it’s from the heart.”

While so much has been done in the year since the tornado hit, Mayfield has a long road of recovery still ahead. To help with the long-term recovery efforts, you can donate here .

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Sun, 11 Dec 2022 21:03:33 GMT

As the sun rose on December 11th, following a massive EF4 tornado, it revealed the extent of the destruction left behind in and around Mayfield, Kentucky.

Debris is still scattered in the fence rows. Pieces of metal remain jammed into trees. The damage is carved into the countryside along the tornado’s 220-mile path.

“Just seeing who was hurt and what had to happen immediately,” remembers Davie Stephens a farmer in western Kentucky.

The night of the storm, he pulled his neighbors, who are also his landlords, from their house and took them to the hospital for help. The days following the tornado were surreal.

“By the time we got our head wrapped around it, it was a week later,” says Stephens. “So at that point, we started having to pick up in the fields.”

He says a quarter of his farmland was covered in debris. It took until April to clean it up.

“Thank goodness there were some farms we could put off and allow planting schedules to go around,” says Stephens. “We just had to say we’re not done with it because there’s too much debris.”

Pieces of poultry houses were scattered across fields. Crews were forced to go from one end to the other, picking and cleaning so planting could resume. The local USDA office says the price tag for farmland cleanup topped $2 million.

“There were so many days we took two dozers and a backhoe to work on farms,” says Stephens. “My mother-in-law’s farm took nine or 10 days to clean up. We saw everything from debris, to brush and even tree lines were destroyed.”

While Stephens was able to plant, he had to travel miles to find an available elevator come harvest. Mayfield Grain is still damaged and in disrepair.

“Losing Mayfield grain was devastating to the local farm economy,” says Penny Wade Smith, an accountant for farmers in western Kentucky.

To date, the elevator remains closed.

“I talked to a client this week who told me that it was costing him about 50 cents a bushel to haul his product into Tennessee,” says Wade Smith.

“Most of our farmers didn’t have on-farm storage,” says Kyle Yancey, President of River Valley Ag Credit. “The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has put some grant funding up for that purpose but, right now, the biggest impact we have is that farmers have nowhere to take their grain.”

Fencing was also a major loss for many producers. While some ag businesses struggle to rebuild, others have been more fortunate.

“There are millions of dollars worth of poultry barns in West Kentucky and for the most part, they made it through the tornado pretty well,” says Yancey. “There were a few of them with significant damage but outside of the hatchery, the industry survived very well.”

For him, the greatest assets remain the farmers who answered the call for help.

“It was really humbling to see that first thing Saturday morning farmers were pulling in with their excavators and their dump trucks ready to dig rubble,” says Yancey.

“We provided meals in our parking lot here at Wade Farm Financial Services up until May, three times a week,” recounts Wade Smith.

The office also planted a community garden to aid neighborhoods wiped out by the storm.

“In true farmer fashion we help each other out,” says Wade Smith. “When there’s a disaster we all jump in and help our neighbors and this was in that same spirit.”

They gave away free vegetables every Friday and there’s even a winter garden growing right now.

“We’re still giving out fresh vegetables to the neighborhood,” says Wade Smith.

It’s a helping hand, as farmers and the agricultural industry work to piece, not only itself but an entire community back together.

“I still tear up when I drive around in town,” says Wade Smith. “It’s really hard to get or head around it all. I grew up in this community. I’ve lived here almost my entire life. You don’t know where you are. All of the landmarks are gone. The street signs are gone. The churches are gone. The buildings are gone. You don’t even know where you are a lot of the time and it’s still really devastating.”

Yet, bit by bit, piece by piece, Mayfield is reclaiming its future and forging a bond stronger than any tornado can tear apart.

One Year Later, How The Spirit Of Mayfield Is Fueling The Community's Giant Efforts To Rebuild

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:15:24 GMT

After an EF4 tornado devastated the city of Mayfield, Ky . on December 10, 2021, the sights and sounds will forever be etched in the minds of community members who were there that night.

“It was unbelievable the destruction that we saw on this town,” recalls Steven Elder, director of the Mayfield Community Foundation . “Then, you saw people coming out of their homes. People were literally just walking down the streets that you can see through here. Because their homes were completely blown away.”

The moments after the tornado hit, Elder, with a camera in hand, documented the havoc that blanketed Mayfield one year ago.

“The water tower, just over there, fell,” says Elder. “ And if the wind didn’t blow their house down, the water just washed their home down the street.”

Elder describes the scene as “total devastation” a few streets from downtown. People lost everything.

“The days never ended. I mean, it was one right after the other because people needed so much, so quick,” he says.

Generosity Through GoFundMe

Elder admits those weeks following the catastrophe were a blur, but what happened in midst of the rubble, may be what defines this town for generations.

“We put a GoFundMe out there, and I thought, ‘if we get $25,000, we’ll be able to do something.’ Well, little did I know, over $1 million came into the GoFundMe, and it’s overwhelming just to say that.”

A community foundation that started in 2018 was still small and fairly new, but Elder says it was the best vehicle to put out the call for help to the rest of the world.

“We knew we could accept donations, and then we could get those donations directly into the hands of the people that were affected,” he says.

And that’s exactly what Elder and the entire Mayfield Community Foundation did.

“That money came pouring in from all over the world,” says Elder. “And we started helping people with their windshields, because one of the things you don’t necessarily notice or see is, maybe your home is okay, but there was so much debris in the air, that now windshields were busted out and people couldn’t get to work. And so we went into the kind of the windshield business of replacing those.”

The Foundation also purchased necessities like mattresses. In homes where the roof was torn off, the items inside were ruined. So, the Foundation purchased those necessities from a local furniture store.

Another void was meat. Elder says people could go to areas and pick up food, but where there were items like Hamburger Helper, there was no hamburger. So, the Foundation bought beef from a local producer and got it to people who couldn’t find meat in the area, since local grocery stores were also without power for so long.

“We just did the small things, just to try to get people back up on their feet and getting back going, even helping with utility bills,” says Elder. “We did just a number of things, real quick things, to help people get back going.”

Homes for Hope

While some of the $1 million was immediately put back into the community, the Foundation’s work was far from done in the immediately months after the tornado. In fact, that work still hasn’t stopped. With all the homes lost, it left many families homeless… a big task, but one the foundation was willing to take on.

“To think that what we were imagining we could do, and what we’ve done now, almost a year later, we were the first supporters of Homes for Hope for Kentucky , and we’ve just built our 19th home,” says Elder.

Now working with a long-term recovery group, the goal is to build or repair 25 new homes by Christmas. It’s that work—along with state and federal aid—that’s helping to start to get this community back on their feet.

“On the same day that the RVs came from the state government, and the governor was here, we gave keys to four or five of those away that day, they also broke ground for the first homes,” says Kathy O’Nan, mayor of Mayfield.

Downtown Mayfield’s Daily Reminder

While rebuilding has started, downtown Mayfield is still eerily vacant. Scars of the tornado are in the form of rubble, stoplight poles mangled on each corner of the square and the courthouse now missing from the iconic square.

“The commerce in the community, you’ve got to get the dollars flowing in the community if people are going to stay,” says Elder. “And so where we’re at, the Square, is where commerce happened. This is where it’s a traditional downtown area that anybody would have in a small community. And all these buildings through here are just completely gone.”

This desolate downtown is a daily reminder of the work left to be done.

“You always get that sense of ‘are we going to make it?’ And I believe that we’re going to make it and you got to cast those doubts aside,” says Elder. “But it’s hard when you see this much commerce and this much destruction. How is the next generation, how are we going to keep these dollars flowing within this community, if there’s no place to do a whole lot of business in the downtown area?”

Elder and other community leaders are confident Mayfield will turn tragedy into a comeback story, as planning is already underway.

“We’ve got to figure out how we’re going to redefine ourselves and how we’re going to commit to rebuilding so that the next generation does have the opportunity to stay here,” says Elder.

“As we move forward to the spring, we’re going to hear lots of hammers, and I hope it’s deafening. And that it does give us hope,” adds O’Nan.

True Christmas Spirit

Years of work are ahead, as buildings are still being torn down so the rebuilding can begin, but it’s a Christmas comeback actually started last year.

“The elves came from all over,” says O’Nan. “We had so many toys brought to this area. We still have some toys. We had a toy giveaway.”

“The number of gifts that the kids received was overwhelming,” says Elder. “And I heard so from people at that event. I mean, there were 1000s of people there, that some of them were saying that was the best Christmas ever. And you start to get emotional when you think about that, because a lot of people in the community that were here, they had very little to begin with. And the little that they had, they lost it all.”

From food trucks to others, in the months after the tornado, proved Christmas doesn’t come from a store… Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.

“Having that event and seeing those smiling faces, they wanted to have Christmas like that every year. Nobody wants a tornado to come through their town, but they were so blessed and so appreciative of how much the community did. It was a blessing to them, even as tragic as the tornado was for them,” says Elder.

“It was truly amidst all this rubble, and all this heartache, the true spirit of Christmas showed, because at that point, it wasn’t about presents. It was about that spirit that was within us. And then we were receiving it so much from people who came to help,” says O’Nan.

While so much has been done in the year since the tornado hit, Mayfield has a long road of recovery still ahead. To help with the long-term recovery efforts, you can donate here .

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise Up From the Rubble

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 13:20:20 GMT

On December 10, 2021, an EF4 tornado brought devastation to Mayfield, Ky.

“Since Tuesday of that week, we had been hearing on the local weather stations, that something could possibly be headed our way,” recalls Kathy O’Nan, mayor of Mayfield.

“As that grew closer, and especially on that day, as the day went on, they became more intense.”

As the warnings become more dire, O’Nan knew the forecasters’ plea to take cover was one she should heed.

“I’ve never been in my basement before for a storm, never,” says O’Nan. “I’m not afraid of a storm. I’m still not afraid of a storm, but this was different. I so firmly believe that meteorologists, the local weather service at Paducah, they saved lives that night.”

O’Nan says once she knew it was safe, she returned upstairs from her basement and assessed the damage outside.

“I live four blocks from town and had no damage whatsoever, but I heard it, and so I foolishly thought, you know, maybe we’ve escaped this,” says O’Nan

Then, the calls started to come in, and as first responders began to wade through the rubble, they started to see the scars left behind.

“When Chief Creason came back, he said, ‘Kathy, it’s just awful. It’s bad,’” she remembers.

“The only light source in downtown was one light, running off the generator at the fire station that had been severely damaged during the tornado,” says David Anderson, CEO of Jackson Purchase Medical Center, the hospital in Mayfield. “So, everyone who was in a structure downtown that was damaged or destroyed, the only place they could see to go was to city hall.”

With some structures still standing but severely damaged, with just yards away other buildings barely touched, the calculus of destruction to this rural town was cruelly selective.

“We have a residential area, just north of it starts right at city hall and extends northward. And all those homes were just gone,” says O’Nan with tears in her eyes. “You couldn’t even tell where homes had been, it looked to me like if you’ve ever opened a box of matches and forced it open, and they all spill out on the floor, and it’s just a jumble, it just looked like a jumble of wood to me.”

Just two miles from downtown Mayfield, the hospital escaped a direct hit. The original path had the hospital in the tornado’s path, but a slight shift sent the tornado through downtown instead.

“It was before 9:45 p.m. before the first eight victims showed up, and they were all soaking wet and muddy,” says Anderson.

He says the 107-bed hospital was left with only emergency power, but that didn’t stop the team at the hospital, as the staff sprung into action in the most miraculous way.

“Probably the thing I’ll never forget about that night is we didn’t make a single phone call to staff to have them come to the hospital that night,” says Anderson. “They just came. I would say almost every one of my radiology staff, probably 25 people, they knew they needed to come.”

A team trained to handle crisis did just that. Before the sun even rose, a community in shock, unleashed a rapid response, and one neither O’Nan and Anderson will forget.

“As soon as the wind stopped blowing, that immediately started happening,” says O’Nan.

“There was no tension in the air among our staff. There was a peace and a calm and just a resolve to get through everything that we needed to get through,” Anderson remembers. “And I’ve never been more proud; I’ve never been more humbled by their commitment to this community, and the way they fulfilled their role that night in the way that they did.”

Even when then desperate calls came in for more help, the community didn’t quit. And while many unexpected calls came that night, one call was a conversation that took Anderson by surprise. It was from the president of Lifepoint Health , which owns and operates the hospital in Mayfield. With that call, Anderson quickly learned Mayfield wasn’t in this fight alone.

“He said, ‘Listen, I just have a few things I need to tell you. First of all, there is a generator truck coming to the hospital to help restore power,’ and I had heard of this generator truck that we have, but I didn’t really have an idea what the full capability of it was. And he said, ‘I’m sending 8,000 gallons of FDA-approved fresh water that’s also rolling towards your hospital and should be there by tonight. It’s fresh and clean, and it’s just as good as you’d ever get out of the tap anywhere.’”

From water to a generator truck, the help sent from Lifepoint Medical included vital lifelines for a community in ruins.

“By Tuesday, we even had our clinics that had no power or water, going again,” says Anderson

This rural hospital cared for 111 patients the hours after the tornado struck Mayfield. Triage also set up in a couple of places across town. The emergency response was swift and dire as the tornado claimed 24 lives in Mayfield, Graves county on December 10, 2021.

“The morning of the 10th we are going to do a walk for remembrance, and we have special t-shirts that we put together for our staff who want to do that. I imagine it’s going to pretty heavy that day,” says Anderson.

As Mayfield remembers those lives that were lost, the response that flooded in from across the nation has been fuel for this rural town the past year.

“Like what started that night and continues to happen, here came help,” says O’Nan. “Our county school system was there immediately with a bus and the superintendent, just people filling in. It just proves what we’ve always known about people here in this community, and now what the entire nation and world knows, it proves that everybody’s your neighbor. It doesn’t matter if we don’t agree, we just want to help.”

While so much has been done in the year since the tornado hit, Mayfield has a long road of recovery still ahead. To help with the long-term recovery efforts, you can donate here .

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise Up From the Rubble

One Year Later, How The Spirit Of Mayfield Is Fueling The Community’s Giant Efforts To Rebuild

Pilgrim's Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Sat, 10 Dec 2022 13:18:35 GMT

Many businesses in western Kentucky were hit by the storms on December 10th, 2021. That includes Pilgrim’s Pride which has a huge presence in Mayfield.

There’s pride in the fact that the lines are still running at Pilgrim’s Pride in Mayfield. The location processes roughly 1.9 million birds a week.

“Every day is different but we stay busy,” says Kent Massey the complex manager in Mayfield. “There’s no consistency in the chicken business other than it’s very busy.”

The county’s largest employer, with some 1350 hands on deck supporting more than 250 family farmers, did not escape last year’s tornado unscathed.

“When I first saw it, I was like, oh my God,” remembers Massey. “Mayfield was just severely damaged. It was something you see on the news and not something you see in your hometown.”

Two hatcheries and their feed mill were damaged. Plus several trucks were destroyed which made continued operation a significant challenge.

Massey remembers asking the questions: How are we going to make this work? How are we going to feed our chickens? How are we going to hatch your birds.

“I mean, when you don’t have a hatchery and you don’t have a feed mill, it’s just kind of hard to do those things,” he says.

That’s when neighbors, fellow farmers and even other companies stepped in to help.

“It was a huge piece just to coordinate everything,” says Massey. “I had some guys just scheduling the feed, some guys scheduling the hatching, some guys scheduling the birds going out. It was different.”

While the company found its footing and eventually got one of the hatcheries up and running, the people that make up the workforce were also still dealing with the fallout from the storm.

“We had four families, I think, that actually lost their homes,” says Massey. “We had 14 other families that had damage.”

While other companies donated trailers full of food, dry goods, water, diapers and blankets, corporately, Pilgrim’s Pride also gave back in time, resources and monetarily. In May, the company donated $1 million to help rebuild 10 homes through the Hope Initiative and another $250,000 to rebuild the park.

“At the end of the day this whole community came together and I do believe Mayfield will be stronger from this,” says Massey.

A moment of pride for a company and a community as they continue their race toward recovery.

Christmas Comeback

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise From the Rubble

Compassion Takes Control

From Flight to the Football Field

From Foes to Friends

Honorable Rivals, Forever Friends

Lessons Off the Field

Related Stories:

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

One Year Later, How The Spirit Of Mayfield Is Fueling The Community's Giant Efforts To Rebuild

Generosity Through GoFundMe

Homes for Hope

Downtown Mayfield’s Daily Reminder

True Christmas Spirit

Related Stories:

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise Up From the Rubble

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

Related Stories:

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Pilgrim’s Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise Up From the Rubble

One Year Later, How The Spirit Of Mayfield Is Fueling The Community’s Giant Efforts To Rebuild

Pilgrim's Pride Invests in Mayfield Following Deadly 2021 Tornado

Related Stories:

The Night Devastation Hit: Recounting Stories from the Mayfield Tornado One Year Later

Kentucky Farmers and Ag Industry Still Cleaning Up a Year After December 10 Tornado

Football, Flight and Friendship: How Extraordinary Teens Helped Mayfield Rise Up From the Rubble

One Year Later, How The Spirit Of Mayfield Is Fueling The Community’s Giant Efforts To Rebuild