Thoughts and prayers go out to the Chapman community who were hit by a tornado last night.

They are in our prayers!

24/7 (The Pursel's)

To Jeff and all the other members of the Chapman community, my thoughts and prayers go out to you. My house sits about 3500 ft away from the tornado that damaged KSU campus. While my house did not sustain any damage, there were trees, shingles, and dead animals all over the place. I know the people of Chapman will band together and come out of this stronger than they were before. I have signed up to volunteer with the clean up effort here in Manhattan. I hope others will take this opportunity if you live near these effected areas.

how bad is manhattan?

Well there is a subdivision in the west part of town that is fairly new called Miller Park. This area is mostly single family homes of new construction ranging from $150,000 upwards of $600,000. In that area there are 31 houses that are completely leveled plus many more that suffered structural damage and cosmetic damage such as torn off shingles. KSU campus near where I live there were several buildings that had roof damage and glass breakage. A ton of tree damage in the path of the tornado. Compared to Chapman, Manhattan was far less severe. The newspaper reported the Tornado here in Manhattan to be EF4 classification but it's size was between 2 to 4 blocks wide which isn't that big so the destruction was limited to a swath on that wide. We were very fortunate here in town. Early esimates are between $20,000,000 to $50,000,000 just in the non KSU parts of town. KSU itself has $20,000,000 in damage.

Does anyone have any ideas on maybe hosting a benefit tournament or fundraiser of some sort for the students of Chapman? With the middle and high school being destroyed, the coming year is going to be tough academically/athletically. Chapman has always had a strong and proud academic and sports heritage. I just didn't know if there was something we, as a wrestling community, could do to help support those students and athletes.

Dallas Holloway
Chapman Fighting Irish, Class of 1991

that sounds pretty bad if it was an ef4

I know being a Chapman alumn myself that I would gladly donate time to help restore what has been lost. I am heading that way tomorrow...my brother and I have been talking and right now from what I am understanding is Generators are a big need.

I will let everyone know more when I return.

Aaron "Swayz" Sweazy
Chapman class of 1998

Although I live in Hiawatha my kids and my grandson have all wrestled for Hiawatha and have been to Chapman And have some good times there and its going to take a long time to rebuild but the wrestling community will help in anyway they can and after the rebuilding is done mabe we should hold a tournament in the new school just to kick off a new school bring back all the kids that have wrestled there and mabe hold a old timers tournament would be the way to go. Last winter we were hit with a very bad ice storm here and the people in northeast Kansas know what its like to have freinds that pitch in and belive me there will be a lot of them and it takes a while to learn just what the people need but if the people of Chapman will make a list of the main things that are needed and get that list on the internet the people of Kansas will be there just like they were in northeast kansas last winter. God bless the people of Chapman and Mamhattan.

I had the chance to go to Chapman today and assist in some of the clean up that was taking place. Abilene took over probably 30-40 student athletes plus many teachers were there. It was amazing seeing the line of vehicles waiting to get in to do there part. Amazing support towards the town of chapman as people scattered throughout town in an attempt to do as much work as possible

I just got back from Chapman about 30 minutes ago...a couple had just purchased our old home and were moving in on Tuesday. 30 hours later the tornado hit and the house is still there, but the roof isn't.

The Methodist Church still has the big cross at the pulpit standing, but not much else around it.

The schools all took a tough hit. The band room at the middle school, the history classroom at the high school and the wrestling room all got hit hard...not to mention the entire 2nd floor of the Elementary School and the Auditorium at the High School.

I know that several people are asking for boxes and tape so they can start boxing up stuff and try to move it out of their houses to temporary storage.

Today they did announce that school is anticipated to start on time as scheduled for the fall term, but will be done in FEMA trailers more than likely at the beginning.

The devastation is hard to describe, however the spirit of Chapman is alive. Several houses had messages on them...2 of the most vivid: Room for Rent...Dirt Cheap (very badly damaged house) and of course my favorite was the F3 My Arse sign.

In closing I was informed that for every person that donates an hour of service of helping in Chapman, FEMA in return will donate $8 back per hour. I know right now the support is strong, but they still need help with some physical labor. If you have chainsaws I know they could use more of those, also any means of picking up trees and such would be great as well (manual or tractor and so on).

Thanks for all the prayers from the people from Chapman.

Swayz

Aaron, I will be in Chapman tomorrow hopefully lending my help with whatever they need. If you are going to be in town tomorrow, come and find me or give me a call.

785-424-4365, I should have my phone with me all day tomorrow.

Nigel,

Unfortunately I had to make it back to Chanute late last nite to return a gracious local who came to help out.

My brother Rich is in Chapman sacrificing both father's day and his son's 4th birthday to help out back home...I know he would be a great point of contact inside of Chapman.

Rich's cell is 580-678-8448

My brother is not one to typically ask for a lot of help, but he wanted me to post online to be a connection to the "outside world" in case something is needed.

Also there is a website that is being set up for the disaster relief...I was talking to Tim Higgins yesterday and he wasn't sure what the website is but I will try to hunt that down as well.

Lastly,

Very proud of former Chapman wrestlers that are everywhere to be seen and are doing everything from operating farm equipment to sawing down trees and so much more...the youth of Chapman have really come back in force to show support.

Here is a note on how people can help:


CHAPMAN, Kan. -- Donations and volunteers are needed in Chapman, Kan., to help the residents recover after a deadly tornado.

City officials plan to open the town to nonresidents starting Saturday, said Brad Homman, spokesman for Dickinson County Emergency Management.

A volunteer system will be put in place, he said.

Those wishing to volunteer are urged to take Interstate 70 to the town and exit at the Chapman exit. A parking lot will be established north of the city, and a shuttle bus will be used to transport volunteers into parts of town where people need help.

Donations are also being accepted, Homman said.

City officials said they needed tents or other temporary shelters, ropes, gloves, trash bags and bottled water. Clothing is not needed.

Cash donations can be made to the City Of Chapman Disaster Relief Fund in care of the city office, Homman said.

Monetary donations can be mailed to the Chapman Disaster Relief Fund at 402 N. Marshall St., Chapman, KS 67431.

Contractors won't be allowed into town until next week, and they'll need to report to City Hall first to obtain permits to work in the town.

Anyone wanting to volunteer can go to the Chapman exit on I-70 and park in the lot. Volunteers will be shuttled to the city.

City leaders are asking for monetary donations to be mailed to the City of Chapman Relief Fund P.O. Box 321 Chapman, KS 67431.

They say tents, gloves, bottled water, trash bags and ropes would be gladly appreciated.

I am finally back on line in Chapman. I appreciate all of your thoughts and prayers over the past few days. The chapman Wrestkling room was pretty much destroyed at our district gym. Zac and I were allowed to go in and try to salvage what we coul;d luckily most of our mats had been rolled up and stored so the baseball team could hang their batting nets up to use after our wrestling season.

I was told by our AD that the district Gym will be repaired, infact today they cleared the debris from our practice area and repaired the roof. Tomorrow there will a meeting of the School board and Administrators to determine the extent of the total damage of all of our schools.

Personally, my house was spared and my family is save. Zac was in Manhattan, but he was also save for the damaged there.

I want to thank everyone that came to Chapman to help with the clean up. I would like to express my graditude to the Abilene Students that came over to help. If though we may be rivals on the play field or the wrestling mat, it is great to have friends to lend a helping hand.

I have received many calls from my wrestling family and now I see I had several emails also. Thnak you again for all of your thoughts and prayers. Chapman will be back and I plan to have several wrestlers had the state tournment next year.

God Bless,

Coach Jeff Sheets

In times like this, the little things stick in your mind. On my first trip to Chapman, I couldn't help but notice that when you looked at the damage in the District gym, you saw the destroyed wrestling practice room with the words : Dedication, Determination shining through the hole in the wall. It was kinda like a message to everyone.

The town is now working on removing the debris. Volunteers are still needed. What you need to do once you arrive in town is to go to the city park, by the tennis courts, and check in with the Red Cross Volunteer coordinators. Once there, they will tell you where you need to go and what they need you to do. Most people and organizations like the school and churches are done with the salvaging of items and removing the huge stuff to the curb. But, there still is a need for people to rake lawns to remove glass. The school district will also need a LOT of volunteers once the trailers get into Chapman. Everything that was moved to a storage center in Enterprise will have to be unpacked and moved back into the trailers. I know that at the high school alone, we had over 100 volunteers on Saturday assisting us with removing band instruments, desks and textbooks. Without their help, we would probably still be there working 24 hours a day trying to get everything removed. You never realize how much a 4A school building has until you have to remove and pack it all away.

Oh yeah, the checkpoints as of today are now gone. You are free to drive into Chapman to volunteer. However, they do not want a bunch of sightseers clogging up the streets. If you are there just to be a "looky!, looky!", you will probably be asked to leave. It is way too dangerous to have people just looking at the damage in the city right now as there are lots of crews working with front-loaders, dump trucks, and other huge equipment trying to remove the debris.

From the Lawrence Journal World

County employees to aid in tornado cleanup
By Jesse Fray

June 20, 2008


Four Douglas County public works employees will help with tornado cleanup efforts in Chapman next week.

The state asked for their assistance, after one of the men, Mike Perkins, helped assess the damage in Chapman this week. The June 11 tornado heavily damaged or destroyed 65 buildings or homes, meaning between half to 60 percent of Chapman’s buildings were hit. Its schools were heavily damaged.

Jim Goodwin, Jim Atwell and Monte Nieder, all county public works operators, will take two trucks and a loader to the community next week, to cleanup debris left by the tornado. They leave Monday morning.

Perkins, the county’s public works operations division manager, also helped out in Greensburg after its tornado last year and he went to Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.