Skyline High School baseball player Cole Mecham lost his father, Arden, two years ago. He hasn’t cut his hair since.

Here is my story on the impact of Arden’s death on Cole, and why he hasn’t cut his hair since.

Cole posted this tweet the day my story was published:

Update (7/9/15): As of July 9, the post for this story on the PR Preps Facebook page had reached 22,512 people, with 4,515 post clicks, 494 link clicks 743 total Likes (from the post and shares), 38 total shares and 37 total comments.

Here’s an excerpt:

On Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013, Cole went snowboarding with friends at Grand Targhee Resort in Alta, Wyo. Arden, a dispatcher for the oil transportation company Maxxon Energy, was days into a business trip in Watford City, N.D.

Cole, a Skyline freshman at the time, opened his phone on the ride back to Idaho Falls that afternoon. It wasn’t working. Later, he’d find out his mother, Darcy Mecham, suspended the phone.

Cole’s house was full of neighbors, friends and family when he arrived. Everyone had serious looks on their faces. Darcy Mecham and her mother, Laree Lundberg, asked Cole and his four siblings to sit on the couch. Laree told them.

Arden was dead.

Cole burst into tears, screaming, “No, no, no.”

That morning in North Dakota, Arden was driving westbound on Highway 23 in Lundberg’s Honda Accord (his car was in a shop). Reed Logan of National Oilwell Varco was driving a truck eastbound.

As Arden’s and Logan’s vehicles approached the crest of a hill, Logan’s rear tires slipped on the icy highway. The truck swerved into Arden’s lane at about 55 miles per hour, striking the front right side of the Accord, according to the crash report obtained by the Post Register. Arden’s vehicle spun into a ditch.

Arden died there at approximately 9:23 a.m. He was 37.

Earlier this year, Challis and Mackay high schools formed a baseball team with players from both schools. It is the first baseball team in the history of either school, both in the lowest classification (1A) of Idaho high school sports.

I initially reported on the formation of this team, and my story in the Post Register can be found here.

I also did a brief recap of the team’s first game, in which it was no-hit. That story can be read here.

And finally, I did a feature on how the team was performing with almost a full season under its belt. That story can be found here.

Here’s an excerpt of that final story:

Co-ops are fairly common in Idaho high school sports. Over the past five years, there has been an average of 26.2 co-ops per season in Idaho, according to data provided by the Idaho High School Activities Association. One of the four District 6 co-ops from 2009-14 was Challis-Mackay wrestling (2009-10 and 2011-12 seasons).

But these teams have come and gone. Many co-ops are heavily populated by one school, so when the smaller school graduates players, its representation in that sport often disappears. The Challis-Mackay wrestling team, for instance, graduated Mackay seniors, and Kevin Mora transferred from Mackay to Challis for his senior season in 2013. Now there’s only a Challis wrestling team.

The IHSAA only authorizes co-ops for two seasons, so if both co-op schools maintain players for more than one season, they would need to renew the team after the second year. Most co-ops fail to reach this point.

[Coach Ryan] Millick said his team has enough players for at least three more years.

Challis-Mackay currently has 14 boys from Challis and three from Mackay (Challis’ Josh D’Orazio is out for the season with a torn meniscus). Two players from Challis — Eric Rose and Tyler Hughes — had never played baseball before this year. Most hadn’t played the game since elementary or middle school in Babe Ruth leagues.

“This is my first time playing baseball since like eight years ago,” Mackay senior Naylan Whitworth said. “It’s fun to get into a sport I haven’t played in a while.”

Last month, I explored high school club rugby in eastern Idaho. The sport is fresh in the state, but especially in eastern Idaho, so I reported on the new teams and the growth of the sport in this area.

Here’s the story that appeared in the Post Register, with an excerpt below.

The Idaho Falls Girls are one of six high school girls team in Idaho, and they’re one of four teams that formed this year. The other three are Rocky Mountain, Eagle and Rigby, all boys teams.

Chet Blasucci, a defensive line coach for the Rigby football team, started the Royals Rugby Club. Like [Carly] Smith, Blasucci played rugby in college (at Utah), but his reasons for starting the club largely revolved around off-field issues.

Two of the players Blasucci coached on the gridiron got in legal trouble in the offseason.

“Let’s just say they needed a place to go, something to do,” Blasucci said. “Being bored isn’t always a bad thing, but it’s not always a good thing.”

By starting a rugby team, Blasucci could kill two birds with one rugby ball. He could coach a sport he loves while limiting the opportunities certain football players had to get into trouble.

The Rigby High School administration has supported the Royals, as well, even though rugby is not governed by the Idaho High School Activities Association. The entire Royals roster is made of of Rigby students, and the school allows the Royals to use its fields for practices and game.

Jumper Jason Kirby, top, practices with members of the Rigby Royals Rugby Club on their lineouts Wednesday at the Rigby Indoor Sports complex. (Pat Sutphin / psutphin@postregister.com)
“We’re just happy to get kids involved in whatever they want,” Rigby athletic director Bob Moon said.