Almost $19k raised to find a cure this year
“It is humbling, to say the least,” said Meghan Flowers when asked about the longevity of the Elk City Cystic Fibrosis Tournament held in Elk City every Father’s Day weekend.
The tournament was the brainchild of Meghan and her husband Marshall after this first child, Mos, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth.
Mos’s disease was a surprise to his parents.
“Neither of our families had any known CF, so we were new parents. We were young and excited about finally becoming parents. We had been through pregnancy loss before Mos’s pregnancy, so we were just so elated that we had gone through this entire pregnancy and were having a baby. Then, all of a sudden, he is born and tests positive through the early screening for cystic fibrosis. We were basically in a whirlwind and didn’t know what to do,” Meghan recounted.
The one thing they knew they weren’t going to do was raise their infant child any differently than a child born without his condition.
“We didn’t want to put him in a bubble,” Meghan recounted. “Our first doctor scared us to death, said life expectancy was maybe around 30. We were told never to put him in public school because he would be sick all the time. That just didn’t seem like a good option to us. We didn’t want him to be in a bubble. We wanted him to live a normal life, even if that wouldn’t be as long as we had hoped.”
Meghan says the situation suddenly turned around when they sought a second opinion on raising a child with CF.
“Mos’s current doctor, who has been with us since he was a baby, immediately changed things. We went from hearing that he would die early and to keep him from basically a normal childhood to hearing that there was no reason that he wouldn’t be able to be a normal child if we managed his cystic fibrosis correctly. It was like hope coming into a situation that had felt hopeless,” Meghan explained.
While neither Meghan nor Marshall are from western Oklahoma, they lived in Weatherford at the time of Mos’s birth. Marshall’s work was in Elk City, and their church home was Trinity Fellowship in Sayre.
“It just made sense to us to move to Elk City, and that was one of the best moves we could have made. This community has welcomed us with open arms, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else,” she added.
The Flowers family also realized that being active would be essential to Mos’s health, which is how the Elk City Cystic Fibrosis Tournament came to be. They wanted him in sports because healthy lungs and physical activity are crucial for kids like Mos.
“Well, we already loved baseball. Plus, Mos was playing and loved it. But, I also didn’t just want to be on the sidelines in the fight for a cure for CF, so I knew we wanted to raise money for research. We learned that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation puts 90 cents of every dollar into that important research. They aren’t like some charities where most of the money goes to the CEO’s pay. They are actually doing the work of creating treatments and will find a cure someday. But how could we raise money in a real way? A baseball tournament is what we came up with ten years ago.”
What started with a few teams has now ballooned into over thirty. Several come annually.
“Mos always played travel ball, so many of the teams we have played against elsewhere show up yearly for this. We have watched these kids from other places all kind of grow up together. It is amazing to see this kind of support,” Meghan said.
Mos graduated from Merritt High School this year and will attend college on a baseball and track scholarship.
He echoes his mother’s sentiments.
“Elk City is my community,” Mos said. “And baseball has been a big part of my life. This tournament is now part of me. I have made a lot of friends through it. I don’t plan on slowing down any, but sometimes, I do get tired of talking about cystic fibrosis. I want to be a normal kid, so it means a lot that these teams and their families always come out to raise money for research to help end the disease.”
Meghan stated that the tournament, which she plans to continue, wouldn’t be possible without the many volunteers who assist.
“It is stressful but also the greatest weekend of our year,” Meghan gushed. “It is hard to describe how good it feels that so many people in our community actually care and show up, year in and year out. We hope we continue to have this support since Mos has graduated, but we know we will. That is how Elk City and the surrounding communities are. I mean, it isn’t just Elk City. So many of the area towns show up with a team to play. Of course, we are always rooting for our home teams, but it is a joy to see any team win. All the kids play their hearts out, and the families have a great time.”
