Haxtun native Carol Scheel chosen as Grand Marshal of 99th annual Corn Festival

It is often said there is no place like home and there are no truer words for Carol Scheel. Carol has called Haxtun home for more than eight decades and so it's only fitting that when the community celebrates "Wide Open Spaces" on Saturday, Sept. 26 that she leads the Corn Festival parade as Grand Marshal.

This year marks the 99th annual Haxtun Corn Festival and Carol remembers being at all but one of the past 85. Her fondest memories are of the Saturday mornings in late September when she gathers to be in the parade or playing street games with her friends when she was younger. Now, she loves to watch as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren take part in the events as the enjoyment of the day is passed down by generations.

Carol was born in Haxtun on April 23, 1935 to Ivan and Florence (Bevard) Brooks, who also had a son, Keith. Carol's family was deeply rooted in Haxtun and Phillips County. Her grandfather J.A. Brooks was the Mayor of Haxtun in the 1920s and her grandfather Bevard served as the County Sheriff during the same decade.

As a young girl, Carol remembers the start of World War II and hearing word of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. She still recalls rationing of tires and gas, and some foods like cocoa and sugar, and that her mother and other women in the community would line up at the local department store for nylons when they were available, which wasn't often since nylon was used to make parachutes during the war.

The day the war ended, Carol was walking with her father across the street from the Corner Drug Store to the Haxtun Telephone Company when the whistle began to blow. Shortly after, she said, store owners and merchants came outside to cheer and cars drove up and down main street blowing their horns. The entire town celebrated the end to the war.

Carol's parents owned the local telephone company for many years and the couple and their two children lived just a block and a half south of the swimming pool.

Keith, who lived most of his adult life in California, later bought he and Carol's childhood home and returned to the Haxtun community to retire.

Carol said living so close to the swimming pool and park during the summer was a blessing. Most of her summer days were spent at the pool or walking around the rock wall at the park. Carol said the pool would get dirty and require cleaning, which meant draining the entire pool and refilling it. Those first few days after it was re-filled were rough with such cold water but once the sun warmed it back up, she said it was perfect.

"Our reminder from Mother was to come home from playing with friends for supper when the 6 p.m. whistle blew," Carol said.

She also remembers the hustle and bustle of town on Saturday nights. Carol said she and her friends would play kick the can behind town hall. The game was even more fun, she said, when the county kids came to town to play, too.

Carol said as a young girl she loved horses and anytime someone rode their horse to town, she would follow them around in hopes they would give in and let her ride. Later, she said her parents joined the saddle club and bought two horses, Babe and Topsie. She still recalls later selling her horses to someone on the south side of the tracks and the next morning she went outside and there stood her horse, who she told to come home if the new owners were mean. She laughs knowing they weren't, but that her horse knew where to find her.

When she was 16, Carol met recent Fleming High School graduate Kerm Scheel and right away she knew she loved him. Carol said some people say there is no such thing as love at first sight, "but I knew he was something special when we met on that Saturday night," she said.

Eight months later the two were engaged and on her parents 25th wedding anniversary, Kerm and Carol were married; June 1, 1952.

Kerm volunteered for the draft and was inducted into the United States Army in October 1953. He attended basic training in Fort Ord, California and was later transferred to Fort Carson near Colorado Springs. Being with Kerm in the Army is the only time Carol's been away from her beloved Haxtun community and its during that time that she missed her one and only Corn Festival.

While in the Army, Kerm trained German Shepherds as messenger dogs at the Army Dog Training Center. While at Fort Carson, the Scheels welcomed their first child, daughter Vera.

Later, the couple added second daughter Nancy and son Greg, who were both born in Haxtun. Carol said Greg was a special needs child and so she was a stay at home mom while her children were young.

Later, once Greg started attending S.T.A.R.S in Sterling, Carol found jobs that would let her work around Greg's schedule. Most of her time was spent working in Sterling at the Purple Sage, Elks Club or Coach House in the kitchen and at Quality Pack, where she learned to cut and wrap meat.

"We (Carol and Greg) would see the girls off to school and then be back just as they were coming home from school," Carol said.

Later, Carol went to work for The Haxtun-Fleming Herald selling ads, a job she held for nearly 20 years. Carol said that was a unique one for her as her mother worked for the same publication when it was The Haxtun Harvest, owned by Leslie Taylor.

When the couple returned to Haxtun, Kerm went to work for the Haxtun Telephone Company, just after Carol's father sold it to Floyd Reyher. Carol said Reyher hired Kerm when he got out of the Army for just a couple weeks to help get caught up installing new dial phones after taking out the old crank phones with party lines and changing to private lines. That job, for Kerm, lasted 47 years. She said her late husband used to joke that they never did get caught up.

Kerm passed way just six weeks after he and Carol celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Carol said that while it was hard to lose her husband of many years, she has peace knowing he had faith in God and had accepted him as his Savior.

Over the years, Carol's spent time active in her church, the Berean Bible Church, and her community as a member of the Haxtun Community Auxiliary. She enjoys playing cards and mahjong with friends and is, more often than not, found on the sidelines of any Haxtun Bulldog sporting event. "I love following the Bulldogs," she said. Carol has been honored as the Haxtun Super Booster by the Haxtun Booster Club.

Carol also makes frequent trips to Sterling to watch her great-grandkids' events; Carol's family has grown to include five grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Carol graduated with the Haxtun High School Class of 1953 and she is known to ride with or in some way honor her class through the parade every Corn Festival. She said her class was and still is very tight-knit and often get together to celebrate their reunions.

The parade and the street games are her favorite part of the day and she fondly remembers her and friend Donna Harrell winning the softball throw many times. She said she also was a good runner and would win that race, too. Now, she likes to sit and watch as the kids compete and have fun in the afternoon games.

When she was younger, Corn Festival often featured a carnival and she and her friends always looked forward to the rides. One year, she said a very macho friend of hers had brought a girl he was smitten on to Corn Festival and he couldn't quite handle some of the rides and ended up getting sick. She laughs that he didn't end up being very macho that day.

"I love Haxtun," Carol said. "It's just like a big family and everyone is always so willing to help people."

This year, as the parade heads down Haxtun's main street on Sept. 26, Carol will make an appearance in yet another parade, but this time, she will be the guest of honor. She plans to ride a horse drawn carriage with as many of her family members that can make it.

"I've always, always looked forward to Corn Festival," Carol said from her home that she shares with her dog, Wilma. "For a little town, we have such a nice parade."