Small town spirit: shared joy

People tend to stop what they're doing and gawk when they hear sirens and see lights.

It was no different on a Saturday evening in October in Garfield County when two ambulances, two fire trucks and five Garfield County deputy sheriffs roared into Panguitch.

Cars pulled over.

People stood on their porches in pajamas. Others were wrapped in blankets.

Some hugged. Others stood close.

There were tears.

And there was traffic. Galore.

About 50 cars in parade-like fashion with hazard lights flashing followed behind the ambulances, fire trucks and sheriffs' cars from "10-mile" (intersection of U.S. 89 & state Route 20) just 10 miles north of Panguitch where Panguitch High School Bobcat fans meet their bus of athletes when any one of their sport teams wins a state 1A championship.

In this case, it was the boys baseball team's win over its own Region 20 rival Piute earlier that day that created this entire ruckus.

As the swarm of vehicles wove its way throughout neighborhoods, people cheered, waved, whistled and clapped.

After all, this is what you do in small towns when your high school team wins a state championship.

You drop everything and celebrate whether you have a kid on the team or not.

Even motel guests came out of their rooms to wave and smile.

And other out-of-towner drivers, such as one in an SUV from Arizona, got caught in this parade of vehicles. They must have thought: "If I can't beat them I might as well join 'em.'" Eventually, they turned on their hazards as well.

Two women who got caught up in the mass of cars decided to follow the ruckus into the Bobcats gymnasium — just to find out why a town was out of control.

A mysterious evening funeral? An accident? Some hocus-pocus? Another tragedy?

Nope, just a small-town ritual, dating back to the '80s, where an entire town takes a minute or two to come together to celebrate life.

Cynthia Kimball Humphreys, a professional speaker and trainer, writes a column for weekly newspapers in southern Utah and is a southern Utah correspondent for Deseret News. Her column, "GR8NESS," appears at deseretnews.com monthly. e-mail: kimball@every1counts.net.