Cheerleading for Sam Page (and the K.C. Chiefs)

A truly fascinating communication this morning from the Sam Page for Lieutenant Governor campaign, which we endorsed in the Democratic primary at The St. Louis American.

This appeal comes from the candidate's wife, Jenny Page, M.D. It opens with condolences for her recently deceased father (R.I.P.), with a poignant story about growing up as a hearing child with two deaf parents. Then it moves into her previous work experience as a Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader (!) before pulling an elegant reverse half-gainer and hitting the pool with a fundraising pitch - attached to a reminder that, as of today, donation limits (and the gloves) are off in Missouri campaign financing.

We will follow the action up through the cheerleader bit. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Dr. Jenny Page:

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I held up sending you the happy memory that follows because my father, Louis Horrell, passed away last Thursday and there was much to do. There was also the need to go through a period of emotional adjustment.

My father was a remarkable man. He met my mother at the Missouri School for the Deaf in Fulton, Missouri. They later married and had three children - I have two brothers. My mother, Ruth, and my father had been married for 52 years.

With both of our parents deaf, the three of us, none of whom is deaf, mastered sign language and it seemed most natural to me. Sam has learned a great deal of the language and our three boys are fairly adept as well.

My father never thought of himself as handicapped. He worked at the McDonell Douglas plant as a machinist for 30 years and was a proud member of the International Association of Machinists. He was grateful for a Missouri state institution that educated him and made him productive and independent. He also took pride that he was able to see all three of his children attend college.
We will miss him.

That Sam and I are both physicians is not nearly as interesting to some people, as the fact that I had been a Kansas City Chiefs cheerleader - go figure.

As I approach my fortieth birthday, thinking about birthdays past, I remember one very special birthday when I turned 20. I was cheering for the Chiefs at a preseason game taking place on my birthday. One of the perks of being a cheerleader was that I had two tickets for every home game, and Sam got to spend those games watching me from the stands.

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With no picture of Jenny Page as cheerleader on hand to illustrate this remarkable rhetorical performance, we have relied upon a colleague from the U.S. Air Force photo service, one Guido Melo, who had the rough duty of shooting the Kansas City Chiefs Cheerleaders at Lajes Field in the Azores, Portugal, when the cheerleaders visited the Azores before continuing onto Egypt as part of an Armed Forces Entertainment Tour.