Smokestack Stories - Volume 3

So were you brave enough to climb 235 feet up a Smokestack? Tonight's Smokestack Stories show there may have been some brave souls out there who did just that.

Our own "Mayor of Claycord" reminisces about two such incidents in our first story. "I remember one time in the 80's somebody had to be rescued off the smokestack after they tried to climb it, and were too scared to climb back down. They didn't make it far, but far enough that they didn't want to move anymore. I went to school with the kid, I think it was around 1989, he was about 13 at the time and lived in the Crossings.

Then again, in 1995'ish, somebody climbed the stack and hung a banner from the top. He was a Clayton Valley High School student, and an expert climber (obviously). I don't remember what the banner said though, I just remember him telling everybody he climbed it and then I saw it later that day."

"Sum Random Dork" offers what may be an explanation to the Mayor's second story in his memory. "Having grown up in the Crossings (one of the 1st homes built I was 6 months old), I always loved the Smokestack. Drives home you could always spot it ahead and know you were almost home. But, my favorite story comes from when I was coaching the swim team in the early 90's, someone climbed the Smokestack overnight and hung a large sign. It was something about the President but nobody could make any sense of it. I guess whoever wrote it thought it made sense, but none of us had a clue. Because it referred to the President, the Secret Service was called in and took pictures of it. The issue became they couldn't figure out a way to get the sign down, so we just had to wait for the wind to take care of it. We (coaches) were asked to monitor the sign and if it came down when we were around to gather it up so the Secret Service could get a hold of it. Sadly, we were not around when it was finally blown off and nobody could figure out where it went."

We had our Board of Directors meeting tonight and all we're very pleased with our progress. We approved new additional landscaping at the end of Lawson Ct. to make the entrance to the memorial area look even better. We also made progress on the brick issue and hope to have news soon on their possible distribution.

Mark Weinmann
Cowell Smokestack Project Manager, CHOA