JEFFERSON CITY • Mariah Sanders had every reason not to come.
Less than a week ago, a tornado tore through her hometown. Her family's house has been deemed unlivable. Two friends' grandmothers are dead and some of her classmates are still missing.
At first the 17-year old junior pole vaulter from Joplin said she would not go. The Missouri Class 4 state track and field championships would have to go on without her. Who could blame her? Even the school she was supposed to represent was destroyed.
Then her coach and athletic director called. Then she talked to her parents. She had to go.
So on Friday there she was, smiling and laughing next to the pole vaulting pit inside Dwight T. Reed Stadium. The number 283 was pinned to the back of her jersey. The reason she changed her mind was spelled out in white block letters across the front.
"I'm here to represent Joplin," Sanders said.
She easily cleared the yellow bar at its first height. It prompted cheers from her small cheering section sitting in the row closest to the track.
"I wanted to come support her because I know a lot of people would not be able to," 19-year-old Mackenszee Roberts said. Her hands, scratched from when the tornado broke the glass out of her car, held a white, poster board sign over the railing. It read: "GO MARIAH. REPRESENT JOPLIN."
Sanders' family could not leave Joplin to watch her compete. The tornado had ripped the roof off their house Sunday night. Rain and winds up to 70 miles per hour did more damage the next day.
Her regular pole vaulting coach could not come either — Kasey Pliler is also a first responder. As of Friday, 132 deaths have been confirmed and the crews in Joplin are still searching.
Tim Benningfield, a pole vaulting coach for nearby McDonald County, volunteered to coach Sanders. The two practiced together only once.
"I was more nervous for him," Sanders said. "I trusted myself and what I knew. I felt like he had the pressure on him."
That's the way Sanders thinks, always about others first.
She feels guilty she was not at home taking shelter in a closet with her parents when the tornado came. She was visiting her boyfriend in a nearby town.
It is not amazing that she is here. Instead, it is amazing her friends came to support her.
She is not angry. She is thankful.
"My family is alive," she said. "There's nothing to be frowning upon. ... I mean there is, but it could be a lot worse."
When she cleared the yellow bar at 10 feet, she tied her personal record. Her friends cheered again.
"I'm so proud of her," Lucy Givens would say later. The 16-year old sophomore from Branson became friends with Sanders during competitions last year. In early May, heavy flooding in Branson caused a mudslide. Her family's home was ruined.
The next time she saw Sanders at a track tournament, she kept the news to herself. After hearing about the tornado in Joplin, Givens told her friend about the situation they now share.
"I lost my house. Then she lost her house," Givens said. "We are kind of coping together."
Sanders' final successful vault of the day came at 10 feet. On her third and final try at 10 feet, 3 inches, she planted her pole and seconds later she was up and appeared to be over, but her body barely clipped and knocked off the yellow bar on the way down.
As the man with the long pole readjusted the bar, Sanders exited the mat with a smile on her face.
"Good job," Roberts said. "She did good."
