Soon After Gaylord Tornado, Charlevoix Steps in to Keep Regional on Track

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

May 25, 2022

At 4:45 p.m. Friday, while visiting a Lower Peninsula Division 1 Regional track & field meet at Novi High School, MHSAA assistant director Cody Inglis saw the first headline reporting a tornado had touched down in Gaylord.

Five minutes later, Inglis heard from Gaylord athletic director Christian Wilson. The school had remained outside of the tornado’s path – but there was significant damage in the community. Add in that Gaylord’s facilities might be needed to provide support in the aftermath – and at that point didn’t have power – and it was a quick and obvious decision to call off the next morning’s Division 2 Regional at Gaylord Community Field.

Within the next hour, northern Michigan’s high school sports community – and especially Charlevoix and athletic director Travis Garrett – would step in with a new plan for the 16 schools coming from as far away as Freeland, Ludington and Petoskey.

Charlevoix, which had hosted the Division 3 Regional that included its teams Thursday, was able to quickly turn things back around to be ready for those schools to arrive less than 18 hours later.

“It is amazing, knowing how much work and how many people it takes to put on an MHSAA Track Regional, that Travis would be able to get this set up as quickly as he did,” Wilson said. “After a few hours of many phone calls and many text messages, we were confident that we communicated to all of the people that needed to know that the Regional would be moved to Charlevoix High School, and they did an outstanding job representing the MHSAA the following day.”

The event timers and scorers from Thursday’s Charlevoix meet actually were scheduled for the Gaylord Regional as well – so instead they stayed in Charlevoix. Wilson and Inglis split up the 80 phone calls they needed to make to get all of the teams updated on the new site, and by 7 p.m. everyone knew about the adjusted travel plan.

That next morning, an outpouring of Charlevoix community members, including the school’s athletic boosters, came out to volunteer and make sure every detail was covered to provide a few more hundred athletes a championship experience.

“The irony is Christian and Gaylord host everything under the sun for the MHSAA. They come to the rescue for us all the time,” Inglis said. “This time, somebody came to his aid and after he’s come to ours and schools’ aids so many times.”

Also important to note: During that first hour, Inglis heard from three more schools in addition to Charlevoix that offered to host Saturday’s Regional if needed.

Charlevoix also collected a significant donation from fans that day for Gaylord High School to use to help families that suffered loss the previous afternoon.

“(Travis) called Monday and I told him thank you again, and he said people came out of the woodwork on Saturday for this,” Inglis said. “It’s another example of how in tough times, schools step up. And Charlevoix and Travis deserve a ton of credit because they went above and beyond.”

PHOTO Runners prepare for the start of a race while the field fills up Saturday at Charlevoix during the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Regional previously scheduled to be competed in Gaylord. (Photo courtesy of the Charlevoix athletic department.)

K-Christian's Fletcher Brought Calm, Kindness

October 13, 2020

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

The calm in a storm. The rock, no matter how bad things would get.

That’s how longtime athletic administrator Karen Leinaar described Ken Fletcher, who served as director of Kalamazoo Christian’s athletic department for three decades and was among those from the Kalamazoo Valley Association who mentored Leinaar when she served at Delton Kellogg during the 1980s and 90s.

Fletcher died Sept. 25 at age 77.

He had spent 40 years total in education, also as a teacher and coach, before retiring in 2006.

“Anytime we had an issue in the league, he was the calming voice, he was the voice or reason,” said Leinaar, now athletic director at Bear Lake and executive director of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. “Being a mathematician, he was a very logical thinker – but he had the compassion of a priest.

“You never saw Ken disheveled. You never saw Ken frustrated. He always had a smile and kind word for everybody – it didn’t matter the color of their uniform or if it was an official or spectator.”

Fletcher had graduated from Kalamazoo Christian in 1961 and was part of the boys basketball team that won the Class C championship in 1959. He went on to Calvin College (now Calvin University), where he majored in mathematics and earned a degree in education, and also continued his basketball and baseball careers. He later received master’s degrees in in athletic administration from University of Michigan and mathematics from Western Michigan University.

Kalamazoo Christian’s boys basketball team also won Class C championships in 1983 and 2001 during Fletcher’s AD tenure. But Leinaar noted that Fletcher was a great advocate as well for the school’s girls programs, which often were more frequently successful – the softball team, for example, won six MHSAA Finals titles over seven seasons from 1996-2002. “He just loved kids,” she added.

Fletcher was named his region’s Athletic Director of the Year by the MIAAA in 1989.

He is survived in part by his wife of 56 years, Judy, three children and 14 grand- and great-grandchildren. Click to view Fletcher’s full obituary.

PHOTOS collected by the Fletcher family.