West Elk Grad Soars To Greatness At KU

Editor’s Note: Gary Van Cleave is a 1980 Eureka High School graduate and was a sports writer for nearly 10 years. He began a series of articles in the past seven months called Van Cleave’s Vibes: Chronicling Kansas’ Greats. This series now totals over 100 articles that recognize achievements made by athletes all across Kansas. It is patterned after KAKE-TV’s Hatteberg’s People by the great Larry Hatteberg. Van Cleave does these articles for free because of his love for writing. Today he shares the accomplishments made by West Elk Patriot grad Devin Loudermilk.

He cleared the 5-feet mark in the high jump in 8th Grade. He planted a seed that would later sprout into a world class athlete.