The new ballad of Sheila Klinker
Songwriter Sharon McKnight’s tribute ‘Sheila Can’t Stay Home’ becomes an instant classic. Plus, watch Friday's full SK hynix community meeting here.
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THE NEW BALLAD OF SHEILA KLINKER
Making the rounds this weekend: Songwriter Sharon McKnight leading a quartet on “Sheila Can’t Stay Home,” a folk song dedicated to state Rep. Sheila Klinker’s everywhere-all-at-once presence in Lafayette. It’s destined to be a certified Lafayette classic, guaranteed.
The song marveling at the Lafayette legislator first elected in 1982 and the performance by McKnight, Neelu Chawla, Noemi Ybarra and Christine Schertz took top prize Friday at Lafayette Urban Ministry’s sold out We’ve Got Talent show at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in West Lafayette.
McKnight said she wrote the tribute to Klinker, inspired by a Journal & Courier article early in the COVID-19 pandemic. In it, Klinker detailed how she was having a difficult time dialing back her legendary local schedule of getting to multiple birthday parties and ribbon cuttings and random community events, but pleading with people to listen to health officials and stay home to help keep the pandemic in check.
As it said in the song’s first verse: “Brave Sheila in the J&C was echoing the plan / Saying, ‘Listen, folks, if I can stay home / Anybody can.’”
“After that the verses just got silly, but the message was the same as the song’s title: ‘Sheila Can’t Stay Home’ — and we love and honor her for it,” McKnight said after Friday’s performance.
Noted: Later verses have Klinker greeting Neil Armstrong on the moon, standing front row at Woodstock and showing up in pictures with Bigfoot, along with the sort of assorted details recognizable to anyone who’s crossed paths with her in town and are familiar with the Gospel of according to Sheila: Where two or more are gathered in Lafayette, she is there.
From the chorus: “Sheila, our very own Sheila / Dressed to the nines / Every hair in place / Serving Indiana with a smile on her face / Ready to leave the House on a dime / Once seen in two places at the very same time / So colorful her wardrobe / All reds and whites and blues / Tell me how the heck does she manage in those shoes.”
And the kicker in the final chorus: “And we’re all better off / because Sheila can’t stay home.”
(Maybe the funniest part wasn’t a line in the song. Klinker was – no way! – not there to hear it.)
Well, here you go, via video captured Friday, April 11, and shared by West Lafayette Police Chief Adam Ferguson.
‘Sheila Can’t Stay Home’
A WAY TO WATCH THE FIRST SK HYNIX COMMUNITY MEETING
The ICYMI features here aren’t all that unusual, as we all catch up with coverage you might have missed the first time around. In this case, call it If You Showed Up and Still Missed It
The standing room overflow in the Convergence Center’s lobby Friday evening came back with repeated comments about not being able to hear what that 150 or so people inside a conference room took in during the first of three community meeting on SK hynix’s $3.87 billion plans to build an advanced chip packaging facility in West Lafayette.
In play is neighborhood pushback on a controversial rezoning request that started to clarify the South Korean semiconductor giant’s overall scope aimed for Purdue Research Park land north of Kalberer Road in West Lafayette.
Here’s BiL coverage of Friday’s presentation by SK hynix and the Q&A session that followed. It includes links to more coverage of the zoning dispute, heading into a May 5 vote by the West Lafayette City Council, and an expanded interview with company officials:
Also there that night was a camera from WISH-TV. The Indianapolis station posted a full version of the 90-minute community meeting on its YouTube page. Here it is, in case you were there and couldn’t hear.
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
Ha! This was a hilarious and delightful highlight of the evening. Thanks, Adam, for capturing it and sharing it with our Greater Lafayette community. I suspect this song will be played again soon at some upcoming community event. I predict a classic ballad has been born!
Sheila is one of a kind to be sure. Who else sends personal notes on the answered survey results? Who shows up to everything and shows up for everyone? Sheila Klinker. A role model of a public servant for the ages. Thank you for this wonderful article. Thank you to the musicians. Thank you to the voters who kept Sheila working for our community. For all of us. Blue and Red. God Bless Sheila Klinker. She has blessed our lives. Many many thanks, Sheila Klinker for your service.