BAXTER, Iowa — Monday was the opening day of football practices across the state of Iowa.
But for the Baxter Bolts, those practices had to be put on hold.
“That really took a back seat to the weather, the destruction our town took on, our school took on," said Baxter High School principal and football coach Rob Luther. "Didn’t take very long coming out of my office after it got through to know we had major devastation here.”
From the neighborhoods to the athletic complex on the town’s western edge, damage was apparent.
“Every little bit that I drove past it was something else, so as I drove up I saw bleachers tipped over a lot of tree damage but right behind us we used as our halftime shed storage for a lot of athletics that was demolished there was a press box right over there, our baseball press box completely down dugouts completely down another shed damaged so we’re just trying to wrap our heads around it.”
The community came together Wednesday to start the cleanup.
“We’ll have 40 or 50 Baxter Bolts current and past, and I do want to shoutout three or four different football programs that reached out to me.”
Piece by piece, the destruction will be cleaned up.
“Getting things that are salvageable on one truck and throwing away steal in another," Luther said. "They call it 'Iowa Nice'. That’s what we do in this state, that’s how we grew up. That’s what we do and when someone is in need, people just step up and our community has stepped up huge."
Soon enough, football will again be the focus, giving the community of Baxter a bit of normalcy in a year that has been anything but.