The Holden Chamber of Commerce finalized plans for the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade during their regular meeting last Thursday morning. The parade is scheduled for Saturday, March 19 at 1 p.m.

“The time was chosen because we hope people will stay in town and participate in the community after the banks close that day,” chamber member Jenny Sollars said during last month’s meeting of the chamber.

The parade will line-up at 12:30 p.m. at Holden Motors, and no sign-up fee or pre-registration is required. prizes will be awarded to the top individual and top float in the parade.

According to Sollars, the parade will be led by a bagpipe player and will head west down Second Street from Holden Motors. It will then turn north on Olive, and end at the city parking lot behind Farmers and Commercial Bank (across from the Community Activity Center). She also noted that the Boy Scouts will have a food booth available for the public, and there will be people on hand at the site of the future downtown park to answer questions about the project and sell pavers needed to fund construction of the park.

In other old business, revitalization plans for the downtown park area were discussed. Verna Jenkins, one of the project’s key organizers, gave a presentation on the park.

Jenkins explained the project will take 5,000 pavers to complete. She stressed the importance of pre-selling as many of the pavers as possible, because labor is doubled when they are added later.

Sollars also reminded those in attendance that the pavers may be purchased by obtaining an application at Bank of Holden or Farmers and Commercial Bank. They can be engraved as a memorial or in honor of a loved one, and the prices start as low as $40 per paver. For more information contact Jenny Sollars at 816-616-4208 or Verna Jenkins at 732-4888.

In other Chamber business, interest in creating a memory book for the town’s 150th birthday was discussed. According to chamber members, a representative from a book company will be at the economic development meeting on March 7 to discuss possible features and pricing of the memory book. Everyone is welcome to come and hear the presentation, according to members. In addition, members of the community are encouraged to contact the chamber with their ideas for celebrating Holden’s birthday.

In other chamber action, it was announced Holden is the featured community of the Whiteman Air Force Base Community Council. A representative of the Holden Chamber of Commerce attends the monthly council meetings held at Whiteman. The council includes every community that is in the vicinity of the base, and is impacted economically by base activity.

Several representatives of Whiteman Air Force Base were present during the chamber meeting, including Lt. Col. Lindsey Borg, commander of the 509th Mission Support Squadron. The chamber donated prizes for a Christmas party sponsored by the squadron, and Lt. Col. Borg expressed his gratitude for their support. He stated he intends to attend more Chamber meetings in the future in an effort to become as familiar as possible with the chamber and community in general.

In other chamber activity, Steve Sanborn, director of public relations and community resources for LifeFlight Eagle, an organization that airlifts seriously ill or injured people to medical facilities, was the scheduled guest speaker at the regular meeting of the chamber.

According to Sanborn, LifeFlight Eagle currently writes off 45 percent of all bills associated with each individual medical flight. The average cost today is $9,000 per flight, and the organization averages four flights per day.

“LifeFlight Eagle has instituted a membership program to help ward off rising costs and to keep the group solvent,” Sanborn explained. “For $59 a year, a family can have coverage with LifeFlight Eagle for immediate family members. It is our hope that local businesses would be willing to promote the program with the flyers we provide.”

Sanborn added the membership program is a positive step forward in assuring help is available during emergencies when it is needed the most.

For more information about LifeFlight Eagle individuals may contact Sanborn at 816-283-9710 or ssanborn@lifeflighteagle.org or www.lifeflighteagle.org.

The next Chamber meeting will be held on Thursday, March 17 at 7 a.m. at Route 58 Drive In.

By Dana Neubert
Staff Writer

A number of individuals, along with Orscheln Farm and Home and Master Marble recently took advantage of tax credits available through the Neighborhood Assistance Program (NAP) when they donated funds to the Hope Coalition.

Administered by the Department of Economic Development, the Neighborhood Assistance Program was designed to assist endangered communities and their residents in the improvement of the quality of life. Through the program, individuals and businesses who make donations to NAP qualified projects, either financial or material, are enabled to re-direct their Missouri tax dollars.

Eligible NAP donors include corporations, insurance companies, banks and other financial institutions, partnerships and individuals who either operate a sole proprietorship in Missouri, operate a farm in Missouri, have rental property or have royalty income in Missouri.

Cash, stocks and bonds, grain, supplies and equipment, technical and professional services, labor and real estate are examples of qualifying donations.

Through NAP, the Hope Coalition is able to perform a number of community service oriented operations. In fact, both the H.O.P.E. Service Center and Community Activity Center were made possible through the Neighborhood Assistance Program. The service center is located in a building donated by Unitog through NAP. Funds through NAP were also used to construct the Community Activity Center (CAC).

H.O.P.E., which was founded in 1995 following a fatal drunk driving accident involving a teenager, operates Holden’s local clothes closet, which provides clothing for financially disadvantaged families at a nominal cost.

In addition, H.O.P.E. provides an avenue for Harvesters Community Food Network to reach Holden locally. Harvesters comes to the H.O.P.E. Service Center one time per month. Anyone who resides in Johnson County is eligible to receive items from Harvesters. Other services provided by H.O.P.E. include W.I.C., GED and other classes and an emergency supply room in which household items are kept for families who have lost household items due to flood, fire or any other natural disaster.

The H.O.P.E. Community Activity Center offers a variety of activities for the community that focus on the whole family including basketball and volleyball tournaments and leagues, family nights, movie nights, church activity nights, seasonal activities, a walking track, senior fitness, mini clinics, gym rental, lock-ins, indoor garage sales, carnivals and craft fairs.

Anyone interested in making a donation to H.O.P.E. through NAP should contact H.O.P.E. president Bob Mickey at 732-5516.

By Christi Stowe
News Editor
For anyone living in Holden, it has been difficult in the past week to ignore the large sign in the parking lot of Lloyd’s Foods advertising “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames,” a christian-based dramatic production that appeared in the Holden High School gymnasium last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

Those who did not attend the production may still be scratching their heads, wondering “What in the world is that sign talking about?” Those who did attend may be experiencing the after effects of an event that is not soon forgotten.

According to David Steele, an evangelist with Reality Outreach Ministries, an Ontario, Canada based company that originated the production 26 years ago, the drama is “a God thing.”

Steele, a native of Bogalusa, Louisiana who travels the United States and Canada with his wife, Tabitha and two children, Lindsay, 12 and Evan, 10, approximately 10 months out of the year ministering through the drama, said it is very successful in encouraging people to “turn their lives over to Jesus Christ.” “It has nothing to do with me,” Steele said. “It is an anointed ministry.”

The production, which is organized by 20 ministry teams much like Steele’s family in the United States and Canada and more than 30 teams in other countries, travels to different cities via sponsor churches. In Holden’s case, the drama was sponsored by Holden First Baptist Church, although members of Forward Community Church, Enon Baptist Church and Kingsville Baptist Church were also involved in the production.

Steele and his family came to Holden toward the end of last week, when they taught area church congregations and volunteers about the production and how to act in the drama, placing many of the volunteers in acting roles. The first production shown was Sunday night.

Essentially, the drama shows a number of scenes in which individuals are faced with the choice of accepting salvation or rejecting it. Through a variety of circumstances, those individuals come to their death and are found to be at the gates of Heaven. They are then, based upon the choices they’ve made, allowed into Heaven or taken by Satan to the pits of Hell. The drama is a markedly intense multi-media production that includes strobe lights and smoke machines for dramatic effect.

As of Tuesday afternoon, with one production still to go, Steele said there had been 50 people in Holden who had come forward and made either salvation or life re-dedication decisions during the production’s invitation time.

“Each scene touches every person one way or another... They will see themselves somewhere on that stage,” Steele said. “I think that is why it is so impactful. No matter where you are in your life, you’re going to see yourself in there (the drama) somewhere.”

In addition, Steele said because each character in the drama is offered a chance for salvation prior to their dramatic death, it leaves a very black and white explanation for the drama’s viewers. “It never leaves people with the impression that they (the character) didn’t get a chance to accept him (Jesus, prior to their death),” Steele said. “It shows what they chose to do with the knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

Holden First Baptist Church invited the production to Holden based upon experiences their pastor, Wes Freeman had watching the drama in Houston in the past. The church invited them to come to Holden six months to one year ago, and began serious preparations for its arrival around Christmas time. Freeman said it has been exciting to see so many different local churches drawn together working to bring people to Jesus.

“Our people have gotten such a vision for reaching the lost in our community,” Freeman said. “This has raised their hunger for God and reaching the lost.”

Steele agreed with Freeman. “It unites the body of Christ for one common goal for that one week,” Steele said. “When they focus their prayers and time on the lost, God honors that.”

Steele also attributed the success of the drama to Reality Outreach Ministries’ lack of money focus. Steele said in the 26 years the production has been in circulation, the fee paid by the sponsor church has only increased by $300.

“The main focus of this ministry is salvation, and God has blessed that,” Steele said. “We want to see the lost saved. That is our main focus.” In addition to the small fee paid by the sponsor church, t-shirts, hats and other products are sold at the productions, which helps to fund overseas ministry teams.

Freeman said the drama has brought some of the more reserved members of his church into the forefront, where they were able to work with other Christians toward a common goal. “I have seen people who ordinarily would not want to be on stage come out and let themselves be used by God,” Freeman said. “They are doing it because they want to see people saved.”

In addition, he said it has been a neat experience to bring the production to Holden for the first time. Although “Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames” has been in surrounding towns, this was the first time it stopped and put the production on inside Holden.

According to Freeman, the drama required approximately 80 to 90 people in order to present it to the community. This included actors as well as behind the scenes people who took care of food, child care, set work and other tasks. In addition, Freeman contacted officials with as many churches within a 20 mile radius of Holden as he could to encourage them to bring groups to the production, which was offered to the community free of charge.

The drama concluded Tuesday night, but due to press time, a count of life decisions was unavailable prior to print. The production has now traveled on to present the drama in Fulton, Missouri and Cape Girardeau, Missouri before continuing on to Oklahoma.

Steele said the impact of this drama is spread by simple word of mouth and commented, “There will be an excitement in this town for many, many months.”

By Christi Stowe
News Editor

Tyler Nicholas Main, 15, of Holden, died Tuesday, March 1, 2005 at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City as a result of injuries he sustained after being struck by a car while walking in the area of Z Highway last week.

Funeral services were held last Saturday at Williams Funeral Chapel in Holden with Pastor Rodney Baumgarden officiating.

Tyler was a freshman at Holden High School, where according to school officials, he was very well liked by his peers. He was the son of Jonathan and Susan Main, of Holden.

By Christi Stowe
News Editor
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