Bulldog baseball players work to better the community

By Joey McWilliams

CALERA – Fall baseball season is in the books, but the Calera High School baseball team is still hitting the long ball for the community.

Under the direction of head baseball coach Rickey Teafatiller, the baseball team worked through a cool and overcast Monday afternoon to paint and make improvements on a house on Haynie Street.

Wanda Lewis’ home has now been repainted and has a new walkway installed, as well as a new mailbox.

Teafatiller said there was a need and his young men wanted to step in and help a little bit.

“It’s turned into a bigger project than what we had planned,” Teafatiller said. “We were going to just paint the house and then we thought well, ‘We might want to do this and do that,’ and then we just added some things. But we’ve gotten a few things done so far so I’m pretty proud of them.”

The high school baseball team was out in full force, with a junior high player or two. Teafatiller said there would have been more of the younger players, but there was a junior high basketball game going on.

CHS senior Tristen Corbin, a pitcher and second baseman for the team, said he just wanted to do something.

“I’m just helping to better our community and to help this lady,” Corbin said. At the midpoint of the project, Corbin had covered windows for the painting crew to do its job, and he had dug the post hole for the new mailbox.

Corbin was among the seniors to which Teafatiller said he had talked and their response was that they wanted to give back.

“Our baseball field is just about a block away from here,” Teafatiller said. “We’re trying to give back to her and to our community a little bit because they’ve been really good to us.”

The coach said he had talked with Police Chief Donnie Hyde to find out what they could do as a community project.

“This has been coming for about six months now and it’s good to finally get our hands dirty out here,” Teafatiller said.

He also noted the help given to the project through supplies and physical work, which included: The Painters LLC, Michael Baird, Lowe’s of Sherman and manager Waylon Capshaw, Kip and Tammy Francis, True Value Hardware of Durant, Mike and Lisa Maynard, Premier Paint and Supply – Benjamin Moore of Durant, Becky White, Lowe’s of Durant, First United Bank and Donnie Hyde.

And those involved from the Calera school system.

“We’ve got really kids here in the school. And not just in athletics, but in all our programs, they’re really good kids. And I think this is just an example of what type of people we have here – students and parents.”