Women on Wednesday Donna Krieger

This week's Women on Wednesday feature highlights a lady that I know quite well, my mother Donna Krieger.  In my personal opinion, my mom epitomizes the idea of a supportive wife and has for the last four decades while my father has pursued his announcing career.  In the eighties and nineties when my father was busy traveling with the SRO circuit and filming with ESPN, my mother was at home with three kids.  Though my mother may have sent my father out on the road, she has continually had her hand on my dad's shoulder in a support capacity to express her approval of his efforts.  My father's announcing career has helped to put all of us through school, including my moms Master's Degree in Education. 

In the years of my childhood, my mother had her favorite pulls that she would choose to take my siblings and I to including Charleston, West Virginia; Chapel Hill, Tennessee; Bowling Green, Ohio; and Owensboro, Kentucky.   Over the years as my brother and I desired to move closer to the track to truly get involved with the sport, my mom looked to move further away.  It wasn't her goal to not attend the pull but to change the confines in which she experienced it.  It has been my standing joke for years that my mother has been to more pulls than anyone without watching a vehicle hook to the sled.  Her routine to this day consists of packing the vehicle with snacks, magazines, and a blanket all while finding the biggest shade tree in the fairgrounds to park under.  While my father or I will be on the microphone announcing, mother will sit in the car to read her magazines cover to cover as well as listening to every word we say.

As the summer schedule continues to cycle for my dad as an announcer of the Pro Pulling League and NTPA, mom is still right by his side as they head down the road.  Her schedule still contains Chapel Hill, as she loves the Henry Horton State Park and the nature she can witness from her front porch all before sneaking in town for dinner at the Depot. Outside of the Marshall Putnam County Fairgrounds in Henry, Illinois is a Hallmark store that marks their calendar for the Saturday in July in which Donna Krieger will arrive to make her seasonal ornament purchases.  And in the village of Fort Recovery, Ohio and its surrounding community, the unique shops have definitely reaped the rewards of her being in town for some pulling action. 
 

In my entire life in pulling, I can only recall one time where my mother was frustrated at my dad, and in his defense, it wasn't his fault.  As my siblings got older and more involved, my mother would often have to stay home in order to help them meet the requirements of their schedule.  In the later part of the eighties, my dad took me to Brandenburg, Kentucky for the annual Meade County Fair.  Much to my dad's misfortune, mother nature opened up a down pour in the middle of the pull on this particular Friday night.  When it stopped raining around 9 o'clock, the officials decided the pull would go on, and they dug up the track to find the drain.  This process took forever, but to this day I remember the Meade County Fairgrounds draining like a toilet bowl.  To make a long story short, the pull ended around 2:30 am and my father I started on our way home.  This was before the era of cell phones and when we arrived at almost four in the morning, my mother was livid with my father for keeping her eight year old son out all night.  Needless to say about twelve hours later, my dad, mom and I were in the car on our way back for Saturday Night and one of those killer fish sandwiches that the Meade County Lions Club serves up. 

Though my mother may not possess the same dying passion for the sport that my father or I do, she possesses a passion for her family that is deeper than anything I have ever seen.  She values her time so much with her husband that she is willing to spend her entire weekend on the road at a pull, just so that she can spend the day or the later portion of the night with her loved one.  As I reflect on the support and love my mother has demonstrated toward my father over the years, I can't fathom how she could have been more supportive of my father and his goals as a pulling announcer.

This feature was put into place to highlight the strong supportive wives and ladies in this sport that continue to stand by their men without question and it goes with out saying that Donna Krieger falls into this category!