Butts Boy Get Closer To The Heavens Than Any Other
Wayne Clowry, from Pearse Street in the Butts estate in Kilkenny, might look like a boy with his head in the clouds at the moment but that’s because he had.
Wayne has just returned from climbing the highest peak in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5,895m giving young Wayne, who never climbed a major mountain before, the honour of being able to say he climbed one of the world’s highest mountains. In the ‘Seven Summits’ scale of continental mountains, Mount Kilimanjaro is listed as the fourth highest mountain.
While we were recovering from our version of the big freeze, Wayne and his Kilkenny companions, David Brennan, Redmond Dunphy and Damien Ryan were battling a snow blizzard and dangerous levels of oxygen deprivation to meet the personal challenge they set themselves last year and also raising thousands of euro for charity at the same time.
Local teacher, Sheila Ryan, mother of Damien, is behind the charity working to build schools and houses in Africa who benefit from the effort and the year of fund raising the boys undertook. Sheila said:
‘We are so proud of the efforts of these young people not just for completing one of the greatest mountain climbs in the world but that they did it in an effort to help others and draw attention to those who are so much more worse off than us.’
As part of their trip the boys visited a village at the base of the mountain and saw the site of the new school that will be built as a result of their fund raising.
Children Host Reception for Heroes Return:
Mayor Malcolm Noonan and children at the Fr. McGrath Centre youth clubs hosted a welcome home for their local hero, Wayne and his friends, that was attended by his proud family and many of his neighbours.
Wayne thanked the many supporters and donors to their fund raising effort over the last year and local media and Carmel from the Fr. McGrath Centre for help in putting their campaign together. He said that he knew he spoke for all of them when he said it was truly an experience none of them would ever forget for the rest of their lives.
Pat McAuley, Chairperson of the local Butts Residents Association, congratulated the boys and said Wayne has raised the bar for every local child and is an inspiration to all Butts people – children and adults alike.
He said: ‘ I think what Wayne has done will make a lot of other children and young people realise that if these lads could take on such a big challenge and succeed, what is stopping any of the rest of us from doing something as challenging and exciting as this?
Mayor Malcolm Noonan joined Pat and the community in his congratulations to the climbers whose efforts he described as ‘inspirational’ and he reminded Kilkenny people that the lclimbers were still collecting for their efforts to build a school in Africa.
‘Now tell me, what’s wrong with young people today? added Malcolm.
by Steve Murphy