A Little Luck
Weekly update #334 6/14/2026 to 6/20/2026
Recently, I had a front row seat as several jumped in to try to help avoid a bigger crisis, and ultimately, it took a little bit of luck to let everyone release a sigh of relief. Before that though, let me share some of the rest of my week serving as mayor of the best small town in America.
This past week, we had our opening session with the State Board of Accounts for our annual audit. Seymour receives enough grant money from the federal government to require yearly audits. While it is extra work, I appreciate the regular audits especially when someone tries to accuse any of our Seymour team of wrong doing. This process will last into July, and when it is complete, they will issue findings on anything they find related to 2025. Thank you to those helping gather materials on our side, and thank you to the auditors from SBOA. I really do appreciate all you do.
As America turns 250 in just 13 days the America’s 250th celebrations have already kicked off. Airplane Ride Day at Freeman Field Municipal Airport, brought to you by the Freeman Army Airfield Museum, was yesterday, and we have a ton of fun planned for the next several weekends. Tomorrow is the free Patriotic Pool Party at Shields Park Pool from noon to five. Grab your red, white, and blue swimsuit (or any swimsuit) and come join us for some fun. Head over to any of the Seymour social media to find a full list of all the fun now through July 5th to celebrate America’s 250th. Thank you to all the city team who has helped on the front end and the many more who will help over the next several weeks.
On Thursday night, we had a near miss with a train on 2nd street. The incident started with a two-car accident. As I approached from the south I could see the train coming down the tracks from the north, and I wasn’t sure if the car was far enough off the tracks to be missed or not. When I came around the cars, I found the driver of one between the two speaking with the other driver who was still in the truck. I had this driver move as the train was approaching and requested the other driver to back up for safety purposes, not knowing if the first vehicle was far enough back or not. As the truck cleared, SPD and a citizen I believe named Rocky jumped in to try to push the car back. The car, having what appeared to be a broken axle, wasn’t going anywhere; all the while the train was still approaching. We all cleared and made sure to try and clear down tracks so no one was in the path if the train did hit the car. Just seconds later, the train missed the car by about a foot as you can see in the picture. When the train missed, you could hear and see a collective sigh of relief from everyone on the scene as we realized how close it was. While we worked to make sure the two missed each other, it took a little bit of luck to avoid the collision in the end. As the train stopped just a block or so down, I wondered how they were able to stop so quickly and learned that the Deputy Director of Emergency Management was at 6th street and heard the call come over the radio and jumped out to give the engineer the sign for stop, and they started slowing then. With this the stop distance was about six blocks or a little over a half mile. To the citizen who jumped in, thank you for helping try to clear the car. To the officers who raced in, thank you for doing what you do. To the Deputy EMA Director, thank you for thinking fast and starting the stop process blocks ahead. This week, I will leave you with a Thomas Jefferson quote about hard work and luck because it took both on Thursday night, "I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."