Document text
Prep Notebook Clarkes endure two tragic events By GREG STILES The sixth-ranked Cascade Christian girls basketball team is off to its best start ever at 14-0 and winning big. It's been a welcome time of triumph for sophomore forward Kelly Clarke, whose family has endured tragedy for much of the past 21 months. The mere mention that she transferred to the Jacksonville school from Thurston High in Springfield, now synonymous with school violence and tragedy among Oregonians, draws predictable reaction. "Shock is written all over the faces," Clarke says, "when I tell people I went there. They want to know where I was and what it was like." Fortunately, Clarke arrived a little later than usual for school last May 21. She got there just in time to see students streaming out of the cafeteria. The panic, tears and agony are frozen in time. A freshman boy had opened fire in the cafeteria, killing two students and wounding two dozen. Among the gravely wounded was Teresa Miltonberger, a member of the Camp Creek Church where Kelly's dad, Mark Clarke, was pastor. "When I went back to school on Monday, people were bawling," Kelly recalls. "It was weird to be back in school. It's not tough to talk about, but it's hard to explain what happened." Mark Clarke was also a paramedic and chaplain for the McKenzie Rural Fire Protection District and among the first rescue workers at the scene. "When I got there, there were supposedly seven kids down," recalls 41-year-old Mark Clarke. "I was told no one was dead." But the carnage was much greater. "The first kid I saw was obviously dead," he says. "I looked around the room and kids were everywhere. I froze for a couple of seconds and thought, `What else don't we know.' Then I just dove in. "The rest of the paramedics, along with myself, had all seen stuff like like that before -- suicides, shootings, blood and stuff. What we didn't realize was that a good half of us had kids at Thurston that morning. We didn't know if they were in the cafeteria or outside. We were doing triage for the first hour and didn't know if the next kid we saw was going to be our kid." The horrific events of that day added to the heartache the Clarkes had endured for the previous year. Kathy Clarke was driving a Dodge Caravan into town with Josh, now 11, to return some videos when a car with three teenagers swerved into her lane and struck the driver's door. "There was no drinking or drugs involved," says Kathy, a mother of three. "Just three teenagers fighting over a song on the radio." Kathy had pulled to the side of the road, but couldn't escape the impact. Her pelvis broke in three places, the emergency brake went through her left leg and her left arm was crushed. She remained in the vehicle two hours before she was extricated. A girl in the back seat of the oncoming car died following surgery. "I wasn't supposed to be alive," says Kathy, now 40. She spent three days in intensive care and two weeks in the hospital. For the next three months, Mark did everything -- bathing, dressing, feeding -- for his wife. "We had a close marriage anyway," she says. "He just stuck through me in thick and thin." The benefit, Mark says, was that Kelly, Amy and Josh got to see the benefits of unconditional love. "I wouldn't choose that kind of event to make a relationship stronger," he says. "But the kids saw how important family is. Kids don't think about that too much, that they could lose somebody." Kathy was told using her arm and walking, let alone running were things of the past. Turning her palm up was out of the question. Her arm has 23 screws and three plates (one is nine inches long). "I'm a stubborn person," she says. "When someone tells me I'm never going to do something, I want to prove them wrong." Without the benefit of a lot insurance money to provide rehabilitation services, Kathy is once more running -- two miles three times a week. Three arm surgeries later she's playing the piano as well. "They said I'd never be able to raise my arm above my head, open my elbow or turn my palm out," she says. "The insurance company didn't want to pay for therapy, but they told me what to do and I did most of it on my own." She sought out Nathan Cole, the teen driver, and his parents in the months afterwards. "I wanted them to know I wasn't angry with them," Kathy says. "People said I should've been angry. But forgiveness is a choice you make, it's not how you feel. God was able to help me do that." She had just passed the first year of recovery and had resumed ministry with her husband at Camp Creek Church last May. Mark had gone to a breakfast club with junior high students from the church. Kelly was going to ride the bus that day, but a friend decided at the last moment to pick her up. A short while later the phone began ringing at the church. "Parents kept call me and kids kept calling me to ask about their friends," Kathy says. Two members of the youth group -- Miltonberger and Kyle Howes -- were wounded. So was Nathan Cole. "I never doubted God," she says. "I knew He loved me and there was no doubt on that issue ever. But I did ask Him what the beans are going on a lot. Mark and I were asking `Can you see any good out of the accident or shootings.' I've seen God do good things. But nothing that equals out. "For some reason God allowed these things in my life." Drained by the traumatic experiences, the Clarkes took a leave from Village Missions and moved to Medford in August. "I had been in Springfield since third grade and I felt like I was losing all my friends," Kelly says. "Even though I'm three hours away, we still call or e-mail. You're closer after something big like that happens." Clarke went out for volleyball and began making new friends. When basketball season arrived she provided Challenger coach Loren King with another offensive threat and more help on the backboards. "I just try to be aggressive and do whatever I can," she says. "I'm having a lot of fun." (Greg Stiles is a Mail Tribune sports writer. He can be reached at 776-4483.) Today's Sports Index Mail Tribune Copyright� The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford,