From left, Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon, emcee John Chester, Taylor “Spladder” White, and Samantha “EDITH” Splawn point at Charles “Expert” Blair, who unknowingly has a Pikachu balloon attached to him as the clowns seek the rare creature during a game of Pokemon Go.
photo by Mitch Talley
Pleasant Grove Elementary School teacher Chelsea Frayre smiles as she fills the role of a smoke detector during a skit with Whitfield County Fire Department clowns (from left) Charles “Expert” Blair, Wesley “Hose A” Williams, Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon, and Battalion Chief John Chester.
photo by Mitch Talley
Samantha “EDITH” Splawn (far left) earned an “A” on her latest report card. Holding up their disappointing “F” grades are (from left) Taylor “Spladder” White, Wesley “Hose A” Williams, Charles “Expert” Blair, and Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon.
photo by Mitch Talley
For their bad grades, the four clowns didn’t get their usual afternoon snack, prompting Kee Kee to light a fire and cook them a cheese sandwich. In the process, he caught the kitchen on fire, leading to an important lesson on what to do in case of a house fire.
photo by Mitch Talley
From left, clowns Samantha “EDITH” Splawn, Wesley “Hose A” Williams, Taylor “Spladder” White, Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon, and Charles “Expert” Blair – with help from puppets in the background – dance to a song that teaches students at Pleasant Grove Elementary about the “Stop, Drop and Roll” technique of putting out a clothes fire.
photo by Mitch Talley
For a new twist on the technique, “Hose A” and his daughter, Natalie Williams, a senior at Northwest Whitfield, trained their dog Gabby how to stop, drop, and roll, too.
photo by Mitch Talley
The Hat Song has been a popular way for the Clown Posse to end their shows for years. Above, Pleasant Grove Elementary students Aiden Williams and Abbygail Harris came up during the Oct. 3 show to flip hats with Wesley “Hose A” Williams (left) and Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon.
photo by Mitch Talley
Pleasant Grove Elementary students Yakira Bernabe and David Zuniga react to Pluggy, a remote-control fire plug used to teach fire safety by the Whitfield County Fire Department’s Clown Posse. Some of the other students pictured include Jared Barrientos, Jesus Magana, David Nava, Aaliyah Solis, Lillian Betterton, Myee Escobar, Raul Rodarte, Nevaeh Sistrunk, Emma Burns, and Edwin Patino.
photo by Mitch Talley
As energetic music vibrate the walls, the clowns come running out with their cell phones in hand, seemingly chasing the wind.
“What are you doing?” an exasperated Battalion Chief John Chester finally asks after watching their crazy antics in the gym at Pleasant Grove Elementary School.
“We’re huntin’,” comes the answer from Lt. Shawn Damon, better known to county students as Kee Kee the Clown.
“What are you hunting?”
“Shhhhh! Be vewy, vewy quiet!”
“Why?”
“We’re huntin’ Pokemon!”
“There’s no Pokemon in here,” Chester declares. “We’re here to teach these kids about fire safety.”
“Oh, I thought this was like Pokemon Central.”
“Do you kids want the clowns to teach us about fire safety?” Chester asks the students, who roar their approval.
“I would much rather be huntin’ for Pokemon,” Kee Kee says.
“Pokemon’s not that important. Kids, do you really want the clowns to teach us about fire safety?”
“Yes!” the students scream in unison.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, I’ll make a deal with you,” Kee Kee says. “We’ll help show this fire safety thing. But, if a ‘Pokey-man’ pops up, I’m outta here.”
“There are no Pokemon in this building!” Chester maintains.
Just then, the gym suddenly erupts into screams and laughter when Charles “Expert” Blair unwittingly comes out with a Pikachu balloon attached to his rear, prompting the other clowns to give chase.
“There was a Pokemon in here!” Chester finally admits.
“I told ya!”
“Did you catch him?”
“No, somebody else got him before I did.”
“Well, are you ready to help me teach these kids about fire safety?”
That funny skit helped transition into the real reason for the clowns’ visit, to teach students about fire safety during their 16th annual program presented by the Whitfield County Fire Department’s Clown Posse.
But it almost didn’t happen.
Thanks to creepy clowns being reported in several states, Lt. Chris West, who helped start the clown program with Lt. Damon in 2001, called the school system and offered to put the clowns’ fire safety program on hold this year.
“I actually spoke with Carrie Williams, assistant superintendent for Whitfield County Schools, and we just asked them straight up, if you need us to cancel this, we will cancel it and we will try to come up with something else different,” Lt. West said. “But she said, no, let’s try to work through this.”
So they put their heads together and came up with a plan that included sending a letter to the parents of every student, telling them about the history of the fire safety program and giving them the opportunity to keep their child from attending the show if they had any concerns about the show.
The clowns also decided to change the way they travel to and from the shows, which include performances at all 13 elementary schools in the county over seven school days, with the last coming Wednesday at Eastside Elementary.
“In the past, we’ve just all met at the schools in our own vehicles,” Lt. West explained. “Kee Kee even used to ride his motorcycle around town while he was dressed up. But this year, we all met at a fire station at 7:30 each morning and loaded up on the fire safety bus and county fire department vehicles and made our way to the school. After the first show each day, we used to go out and eat, but this year we all rode back together and had lunch catered in at a fire station before we left to go to the second show.
“We’re just trying to be proactive this year so that we don’t draw any more attention than we need to,” Lt. West said. “It’s sad it’s that way, that this has taken place across the United States where they’ve had some clowns scaring people and we don’t want to do that. We don’t want to portray that and hope that by next year, it’ll be a thing of the past. But, while it’s going on, we just felt it was best that we try to keep it as low key as possible so that we don’t draw any attention to ourselves on the road.”
Once at the schools, though, it was silly business as usual for this bunch of clowns and their helpers, who include some 17 firefighters of all ranks.
Based on the happy looks and screams of enthusiasm from the students at Pleasant Grove Elementary on the opening day of the shows on Oct. 3, the fire safety program wasn’t affected one bit by the unsavory outside influences.
Kee Kee and his band of clowns – who included Lt. Wesley “Hose A” Williams, Eng. Taylor “Spladder” White, Eng. Charles “Expert” Blair, Lt. Jason “Pancake” Phillips, and Firefighter Samantha “EDITH” Splawn – kept the antics coming non-stop as they shared their messages with the students about how to prevent fires and what to do in case of a fire.
“It’s been real encouraging this year due to the little girl from Antioch Elementary, Adrienne Dunn, who was able to help save her family from a fire at her house due to what she had learned from the clowns at her school,” Lt. West said, “so we wanted to continue that positive message and get it out to the kids.”
Even if they don’t always get their lines just right, the clowns just wing it and still manage to get the important points across to the students, Lt. West said.
“Knowing what to do during a fire is our main objective to get across,” he said. “We want them to know how to get out of a house if it’s burning, know what to look for, to let the kids know that matches and lighters are tools, not toys, and if used in the right environment they’re good things, but if they’re treated wrong, they can do damage.”
Hence, the skit where Kee Kee – after not getting his snack due to the “F” on his report card - decides to try and cook cheese sandwiches for his buddies and winds up catching the house “on fire,” forcing the clowns to remember what Fireman Fred had told them at school – to stay calm, go outside to their meeting place, and call 911 to get the fire department to come put out the fire.
This year, they added a new twist to the standard “stop, drop and roll” strategy recommended in case your clothes ever catch on fire.
They brought Hose-A’s dog, Gabby, to the show to prove that “stop, drop and roll” is so easy even a dog can do it. Williams’ daughter, a senior at Northwest Whitfield High School, taught Gabby to do the technique, which proved popular with the students but prompted a bit of jealousy from Sparky the fire dog (played by Lt. Jake Warnix). Sparky came out and showed he could do the “stop, drop and roll,” too!
This year’s Whitfield County Fire Department Clown Posse includes the following personnel:
Lt. Chris West – Prevention Coordinator
Battalion Chief John Chester
Lt. Nathan Callaway
Lt. Shawn “Kee Kee” Damon
Lt. Wesley “Hose A” Williams
Eng. Taylor “Spladder” White
Eng. Charles “Expert” Blair
FF Samantha “EDITH” Splawn
Lt. Jantzen Chance
Lt. Harold West
Eng. Darren Burnette
Lt. Jake Warnix (Sparky)
Eng. Cody Ruddell
Eng. Lee Coker
Eng. Ryan Robbs
FF Brady Walters
FF Austin Ridley
Lt. Jason “Pancake” Phillips