PART 5

SELFLESS ACTS AND THE CHALLIS EFFECT

John’s ability to touch and inspire complete strangers was something special, and the outpouring soon became a two-way street. One example of this happened in the spring of 2007, when Scott picked up the golf cart and wheelchair from a local resident for John to use.

After John got the cart, he started using it right away; he really loved it because he had his freedom again. What he wasn’t thrilled with was the wheelchair. “Dad, get rid of the wheelchair. I don’t need it. I have cancer—I’m not disabled,” he said. He told Scott to give it to someone who needed it. “Make sure you don’t sell it; a man gave it to me, so I want to give it to someone who needs it,” John said.

A short time after this conversation, a friend told Scott that John’s Little League baseball coach’s father had just lost his legs due to diabetes. Scott made the arrangements, and the wheelchair found a new home. Looking back, Scott said, that was a turning point for John and their family. “That was one time I noticed John changing. We as a family were seeing the good of people of all walks of life, and it was rubbing off on him.”

A few months earlier, Joe Signore had organized a very special event at Gina’s work, the Beaver County Domestic Relations office. As John walked into the courthouse, the hallways and stairs leading to the second floor were lined with balloons—and the courthouse employees. This line led to the foyer upstairs, where Joe presented him, on behalf of all of the courthouse employees, with close to $3,000 in one-dollar bills; Joe had organized a collection. John was speechless at this outpouring of love and support.

As the event went on, everyone in attendance let him know he was in their prayers. Joe remembered the significance of the event: “I truly believe the support shown at this early stage actually launched his strength and his family’s trust that this was going to be okay. The purpose deep down in all of us, however, was to simply bless him and enable the family to do something special together in the event the inevitable was near. It turned out he blessed us.”

That October, John attended a Larry the Cable Guy live show at the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh. Larry the Cable Guy always made John smile, so Scott contacted a local businessman, who was able to secure tickets and backstage passes for John, Scott, Gina, and John’s friend Dallas Betz. Before the show, John and Scott went backstage to meet Larry, and as they waited, Larry told the community relations person to put John at the end of the line. Larry went through forty-nine other people in his meet and greet before meeting John. They spoke, just the two of them, for almost half an hour. On his way out, Larry shouted out to John to come back. He took off his gold fishhook he had in the visor of his hat and put it on John’s hat.

Meeting Larry made a huge impression on John, according to Scott: “John always said, of all the people he had met, Larry the Cable Guy was one of his favorites. He wasn’t in a hurry and he was so down to earth.”

In typical John fashion, he made sure that he took care of the people closest to him that night as well. A few days before the show, John told his assistant principal, Dan Lentz, that he had a ticket. Dan told him how happy he was that John was going to meet Larry the Cable Guy, who, like Dan, was a huge Nebraska Cornhuskers fan. The day after the show, John went into Dan’s office and told him how funny Larry was and how nice he had been when they met. He also had something to pass along to Dan—his ticket, signed by Larry: “To Dan, Go Big Red, All the best, Larry the Cable Guy.”

Dan said, “That was the quintessential Johnny. Riddled with cancer, he was still thinking of someone else. That ticket, along with a picture of Johnny and I together at one of his fundraisers, is in an eight-by-ten-inch frame in my office to this day. And it always will be.”

John met Lena Holewski at Freedom’s first baseball game of the 2007 season. John came over to the fence where she was standing along the Bulldogs’ dugout. There was a boy on deck to bat when John looked over and asked what she was doing. Lena told him that Coach Rich was her father. They started talking about school and sports, and Lena remembered his crooked smile at the end of the game, and how he said to her, “Well, it was very nice meeting you, and I hope to see you around.” He did not tell her he had cancer.

“He told me the second time I saw him that he had cancer,” said Lena. “He kept it short but didn’t want me to feel bad. Those were his exact words. He wanted me to know that he was positive about the outcome, whether it destroyed his parents’ hearts or if it meant he would live his life and become an old man one day.”

Their friendship continued to grow. They spent long blocks of time on the phone each night. John eventually became less afraid to talk to her about what he was going through. “Some days were okay and some were a struggle,” Lena said. “Either way, he was always on a positive note. He told me there were a few things he wanted to do before he passed, number one being [to] graduate with his class. He also wanted to go on a cruise and attend some sporting events, all of which he was able to accomplish.

“In his last few months, I will say [it] was the closest we ever were. We made many, many arrangements for me to go over and check out his . . . hobby-related collections and meet his family and even get to meet his grandma. Each time I was supposed to go over . . . he was afraid for me to see him so weak and sick. One day he actually said to me, ‘I really want you to meet my grandma, but I don’t want you to see me this way.’ I was willing to see him, but because of his . . . not wanting me to see him so weak, I chose to say, ‘That’s okay.’ I told him there would be a next time and he would be feeling more up to it, and that it was better he would spend the time with his grandma because no one was promised tomorrow. He said, ‘Every day I wake up, I thank the Lord for giving me another day.’ The next time I was supposed to go over and meet his family and grandma . . . he was getting worse. The conditions were bad. I never did meet his grandma and get to see his collections.”

Lena’s was not the only new friendship John struck up that year. That summer, after a family trip to Myrtle Beach, Dan Lentz arranged a golf outing for himself, John, and Herb Pope, a six-foot-seven forward from the neighboring Aliquippa High School. Herb was as big a name as there was that year in Pittsburgh-area high school sports. He went on to play college basketball for one year at New Mexico State before finishing his career at Seton Hall. John had met him once before at a Freedom versus Aliquippa basketball game the prior winter.

The outing started slow; Herb did not have clubs or really any idea how to play golf. He had never been on a golf course before. Still, he was very kind to John as they talked the whole round. On one hole, John’s shot came up a little short of the green. Herb went over the green and took the cart to park it up by the green, just like the threesome had done numerous times. However, not knowing golf etiquette, Herb drove the cart directly across the green, a major etiquette mistake. The course they were playing was semiprivate, and by the time Dan saw the problem, a handful of regulars were already shouting at Herb.

Dan tried to calm the situation and took the blame for not explaining the etiquette to Herb. Herb tried to walk, but the regulars continued to holler. As Dan recalled, it was a racial issue. “It was obvious that the only thing they didn’t like more than Herb driving across the green was the color of Herb’s skin,” he told me.

To Herb’s credit, he apologized and said nothing else. Dan finally got the regulars to calm down, turn around, and walk away, and as he did, he turned around to find John walking toward them with his wedge raised as though he was going to swing it and hit them. He yelled at the regulars, “Ya’ll better turn around and get outta here!”

Dan had to grab John, take the club out of his hand, and steer him back toward their hole. As Dan remembered with a good laugh: “That was Johnny! Five foot nothing, 95 pounds, full of cancer, and he’s going to take a pitching wedge to a few good old boys, backing up the six-foot-seven basketball star and the six-foot-eight coach!”

In May 2008 John told Steve Wetzel that he wanted to take his mom, dad, and Lexie on a last vacation together. Steve took the ball and ran with it and put together a fundraiser called Walk For A Champion. Students from about fourteen high schools showed up. The family was amazed by how many people participated, and enough money was raised for John to take the family on a western Caribbean cruise.

By the end of June 2008, John’s message was reaching far and wide. “A guy called from Sacramento, California. . . . Brian Karavlan and his wife named their son Jaxson Challis Karavlan. We were so honored that someone would do this,” said Scott.

In the mail the Challis family received a package with an American flag and a letter of authenticity from a Navy pilot who flew a mission over Afghanistan; he knew about John and wanted to do something for him. Not long after that, John received a package from Emeril Lagasse, with an autographed cookbook and a chef’s apron.

In June, John and Scott were in the pool when the phone rang. There was a man from New Jersey on the line, and he asked if this was the home of John Challis, the one who was on TV during the hockey game. He asked if he could speak to John. John took the phone. Scott recalled, “I could hear him say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, sir, just pray for me,’ and he hung up. I asked [John] what all that was about, and he said the guy just wanted to hear [his] voice. He then said that the guy’s father was sick and that John had given him inspiration. John said he never thought he was helping people in that way.”

It seemed that everyone in town knew about John and who he was. John would go to the store or walk through the parking lot, and people he had never met would yell, “John, hang in there!” or “We’re praying for you.” He would go to a restaurant and someone there would pick up the tab. Different bars and restaurants sent home special soups or dishes that people knew John liked: lobster bisque on Wednesdays from Kelly’s, or potato soup from Tinitique. French onion soup or escargot from the Wooden Angel, or Ray Salamone from Conway Pizza, sending home wings and chicken soup.

Everyone reached out. Friends of the family Linda Keener and her mom, Joan Pail, were so special to John. According to Scott, they always made sure John had his sweets. “Either desserts or fresh strawberries twice a week for two years,” he said.

Joe Signore asked what he could bring, and John told him he loved crab. Joe brought John two Alaskan king crab legs twice a week for almost six months.

Everyone wanted to help and give. Even something as simple as talking to John meant a lot. As Scott recalled, John had a circle of very good friends, not only in his peer group, but among adults as well. One adult friend, Karen Roman, talked about John’s incredible wisdom: “John was the reason I quit smoking. We were at a Freedom High School girls’ basketball game. I had just come in from smoking a cigarette, and John came up to me, and his words were powerful. He looked me straight in the eye and asked me, ‘Karen, do you want to end up like me? Keep smoking.’ My response was ‘You’re right, John. I shouldn’t smoke. I’m going to quit, and you are my inspiration to do so.’ I haven’t picked up a cigarette since.”

She continued, “I would always visit John. Toward the end John seemed so weak, yet he still kept his humor. During one of my visits Scott was trying to get me to try this food that looked disgusting. John was in the living room half-asleep when he belted out, ‘Don’t eat that! It’s snails.’ My daughter Cassie and I laughed the whole way home!”

Her last conversation with John will stay with her forever. Her family was leaving for Ocean City, but before they left she made sure to stop by the Challises’ one last time. John was on the couch, so frail, in and out of sleep. Gina attempted to wake him. When she told him Karen was there, his eyes opened wide and he gave her a huge smile. “I knew that was the last time I would talk to him,” Karen recalled. “His last words to me [were] ‘I love you,’ and then he closed his eyes. I cried the entire ride home.”

While on vacation, Karen called Scott every day for an update. She prayed for a miracle, that nothing would happen while she was so far away. She hadn’t been home ten minutes when she got the call: John had passed away. “The selfish part of me was angry,” said Karen. “How could this happen to such a good kid? John was so full of wisdom beyond his years. The mother in me knew John was at peace. No more pain. He was home, flashing the grin to all the angels in heaven. I’ve kept his voice mails on my phone. When I’m feeling sorry for myself, I listen to his message. It puts life back into perspective.”

Two final instances show the Challis effect at work in two different parts of the United States. First, in 2010 eight-year-old Coby Johnson from Berwick, Maine, saw on ESPN that John had written on his baseball cap, “Courage + Believe = Life.” His mother contacted the Courage for Life Foundation to purchase T-shirts and some other items from the Foundation’s web page, and she said that her son put John’s message on everything he owned. She sent the Foundation a picture of her son’s bedroom wall with John’s message on it.

Additionally, in 2008 John received a letter from an inmate from the Department of Corrections in Colorado, telling him that John had changed his life and that now he wanted to turn his life around.