LETTER FROM OUR EDITOR

By DONNA NICKEL

I wanted to share with Our Town readers a comment made by an “outsider.” The person was a cameraman for the show Nascar Angels and he was in town several weeks ago filming a segment featuring resident Jeff Bodenschatz and his 1969 Javelin. The premise of the show which airs on the Speed Network is the renovation of a car for a person in need of some assistance. Bodenschatz has been dealing with colon cancer for almost five years and driving the Javelin has been his dream. The climax of the show is the Grand Reveal, when the finished product is unveiled. The production crew told those involved that typically, 40 or 50 members of the community show up the Grand Reveal.
It was a sunny Saturday in June and the Grand Reveal was held at the Goodyear Service Station on Frank Rd. As is protocol, the producers of the show distributed release forms to all bystanders to sign. The network people frantically handed out 250 release forms before finally running out of paper. It was the largest show of community support for a single person's car reveal in the history of the Nascar Angels show.
“I've been in a lot of communities, and this kind of thing doesn't happen just anywhere,” Roger, the cameraman said. “You've got something special here.” He and the rest of the production crew had nothing but complimentary things to say about the area their entire visit, from the pleasant weather (these Phoenix, AZ folks were delighted to see green grass and be able to stand outside mid-day) to the neighborly trust, expressing surprise that windows were kept open for cool breezes without the worry of daytime robberies. But it was Roger's comment at the end of the filming that will forever stay with me. Sometimes it takes an “outsider's” view to see Home as special.