Joanne Brig­gs

Grow­ing up, Joanne Kil­go­ur-Dowdy's week­ly chore was clean­ing her fa­ther's ar­ray of tro­phies. She didn't know what he won them for, all she knew she had to make sure they were clean."I had no con­cept of sig­nif­i­cance, no scope of im­pact," said Kil­go­ur-Dowdy, a pro­fes­sor of ado­les­cent/adult lit­er­a­cy at Kent State Uni­ver­si­ty in the De­part­ment of Teach­ing, Lead­er­ship and Cur­ricu­lum and In­struc­tion.Per­haps, by en­sur­ing the tro­phies were dust-free and at­trac­tive to look at, clean­ing the tro­phies may have been a sub­lim­i­nal con­nec­tion with her fa­ther, Lennox Kil­go­ur, the Olympian, who won the bronze medal for weightlift­ing at the 1952 Games in Helsin­ki.

As a child, she didn't know her fa­ther's prowess. She knew him as an artist who paint­ed and col­lect­ed sculp­ture, not a mus­cle-bound man who could have lift­ed any­thing. She even­tu­al­ly un­der­stood his in­ter­na­tion­al claim to fame but it is on­ly now she is telling every­one of her dad, through a book she has writ­ten about him en­ti­tled Olympic Hero.The plan a year ago was to write a chil­dren's book for ten-year-olds and by Box­ing Day (De­cem­ber 26) last year, her pen urged her to write the sto­ry about Dad­dy. The book, she says, still tar­get young­sters at pri­ma­ry-school lev­el–be­tween Stan­dard Three and Stan­dard Five."The chil­dren whom I've read to be­lieve the sto­ry is writ­ten like a po­em...with very warm, cap­ti­vat­ing draw­ings. To have the vi­su­al of the im­ages is to feel part of the ex­pe­ri­ence that has not been told like this. It is a lega­cy that is in place," said Kil­go­ur-Dowdy, her­self a Holy Name Con­vent alum­na.

From a lit­er­ary point of view, Kil­go­ur-Dowdy's work is a con­tri­bu­tion to the Caribbean iden­ti­ty as she presents one of the he­roes who made a mark be­yond these shores. But for her, it is the in­sid­er sto­ry of a hero, writ­ten by a daugh­ter.

"It was an in­ti­ma­cy be­tween my fa­ther and my­self. I had to go to a pri­vate place and ap­pre­ci­ate what I have and let them in. There is a lot of warmth in this. I lux­u­ri­at­ed in the fact that some­one wants to give you this spe­cial treat," she said in a long-dis­tance tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Ohio and Trinidad.Dr Basil Ince as­sist­ed in her re­search, since he has been record­ing the feats of T&T ath­letes and read a draft of the book to en­sure ac­cu­ra­cy. Alex Chap­man, the for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the T&T Olympic As­so­ci­a­tion, a source of in­for­ma­tion for Ince's book, was al­so sup­port­ive of Dowdy-Kil­go­ur's project."There is no sec­ond-guess­ing of his­tor­i­cal in­for­ma­tion. But when writ­ing for that age group, you don't have to dumb down the in­for­ma­tion. You have to be very in­tel­li­gent about it," Kil­go­ur-Dowdy said.Writ­ing the sto­ry was al­so a feat, since she was try­ing to get it down be­fore the words dis­ap­peared. One para­graph was turned in­to a pan­el and each day she worked on a pan­el. She knew if she forced the words she would de­stroy the flow. The end re­sult was 25 pan­els that moved along the time­line from birth to the na­tion­al Hall of Fame.

The first draft was sent to a cou­ple of writ­ers of chil­dren's books. Af­ter the sec­ond rewrite, there was si­lence."That when I start­ed to ques­tion my­self, won­der­ing, 'Have you reached that place whether you have told that sto­ry, does it res­onate how you want it to?'" she said.

To use her words, the book is very vivid, very sooth­ing tale that left her feel­ing sat­is­fied at the end.The sto­ry about her dad is one about glo­ry but it al­so re­veals the chal­lenges he faced in en­sur­ing he trained hard, was at the best of health while prepar­ing for com­pe­ti­tion.Al­though the book is in­tend­ed for chil­dren, adults have en­joyed read­ing the book."They adore it," she says.The over­all les­son as not­ed by a re­cent re­view is: "the mo­ti­va­tion to suc­ceed, it is a sto­ry which could in­flu­ence young read­ers to hard work and the re­sult­ing re­wards."Writ­ing the book al­so gave her Kil­go­ur-Dowdy some brag­ging rights, es­pe­cial­ly as a Trinida­di­an liv­ing in the Unit­ed States. As a small is­lander, a for­eign­er, she has sat in so­cial cir­cles where the Dad­dy boast is of great sig­nif­i­cance. As she ob­served, Paul Keens-Dou­glas' trib­ute, "My dad­dy is de best. Best, best, best..." can be adapt­ed in a non-Caribbean set­ting.Then, she couldn't say who her dad was be­cause there were no words. Now she has a chance to say her dad won an Olympic medal."Now, they have to re­cal­i­brate all as­sump­tions about the black fe­male im­mi­grant in a pre­dom­i­nant white so­ci­ety. I know I have my name, but do oth­ers know my name?" she ex­plained. "I could go out in­to the world and say my dad­dy is big too, our coun­try too."In Trinidad, Kil­go­ur-Dowdy hopes to launch Olympic Hero next June at Nalis. But it seems half the work is al­ready done since for­mer li­brar­i­an and Ein­tou Springer and Joan Os­borne of Nalis have pledged en­dorse­ments for the book."There are books we can read...that some­where has a proud his­to­ry," Kil­go­ur-Dowdy said.

ABOUT LENNOX KIL­GO­UR

Lennox Kil­go­ur was born on May 5, 1928 in Port-of-Spain.He at­tend­ed Os­mond High School. At Os­mond, he met sev­er­al men who would in­flu­ence his ca­reer as a weightlifter, in­clud­ing one of T&T's top ath­letes, Carl "Suze" de Souza, who in­tro�duced Kil­go­ur to the game.In 1946, he won the Na­tion­al Ju­nior Cham­pi­onships.Kil­go­ur won the West In­di­an Cham­pi­onships in the heavy­weight di­vi­sion in 1949. He was the top heavy­weight at the Cen­tral Amer­i­can Games in 1950, and won a bronze medal at the 1952 Sum­mer Olympics in Helsin­ki, Fin­land.He re­tired in from ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al compe�tition at the age of 28 af­ter com­pet­ing at the Olympics in Mel­bourne in 1956.Kil­go­ur was ho­n­oured in 1985, when he was in­duct­ed to the Na­tion­al Hall Sports of Fame. He died in 2004.