The local paper was holding a contest the year John Allen Clancy was born to Robert and Elizabeth Clancy of Meeker, Colorado. The owner of the local paper, Tom Jones, was offering $300 to the first local family to have a newborn child in the year 1953. It was Tom’s way of praying that 1953 got off to a better start than the way 1952 was ending for him. It was also Tom’s way of apologizing to the small rural community for the embarrassing night of December 15th when Tom was caught sleeping with Mrs. Johnston, of the Dick Johnston family. One might have thought the cause for the town’s indignation towards Tom was that his affair with Mrs. Johnston violated the very foundation of their community’s tight Christian roots, and in fact it did upset the widow Mrs. Taylor of county road 204 who had re-found God after her husbands death. However, the townsmen and women were more upset about Dick Johnston’s reaction to the sordid affair. Dick Johnston owned the local grain and feed establishment and, out of passive frustration, he raised the prices of grain just in time for Christmas. It wasn’t a massive price hike, which he defended by bringing up the unusually cold and snowy winter, but it was enough to get the town grumbling. One Dennis White, who regularly had coffee at Mary’s Diner, theorized that,” ...ol’Dick Johnston probably raised prices to buy himself a new gun as to shoot that Tom Jones down. That’s sure the hell what I’d do.” Dennis White was not too far off from the truth.
Anyway, the town became especially interested in the local paper’s contest because, as it turned out, there were two families closest in the running to win the contest – this, according to the good Doctor McKinney himself, was the Clancy family and the Smith family. Secretly the town was rooting for Robert and Elizabeth to win. “We’re tired of seeing Jack Smith win everything,” many of the people said. “He already takes enough money from us as it is.” Jack Smith was both the town’s District Attorney and Secretary Treasurer. Jack Smith was a college-educated man – which had many of the locals suspicious of him anyway – who walked around town quite confidently and would constantly bring any conversation being had around him to focus on him and his accomplishments. It was rumored that Jack Smith had two $300 side bets believing that his wife was a “shoe-in” to have the first baby of 1953.
