Friday Focus Comes to an End

Friday Focus was a group of hard-working, concerned citizens in Carlsbad who would get together every week and feature different speakers involved in the community.

On May 2, the group featured speaker Robert Helton. He and his wife, Kathy, moved to Carlsbad in 1991. Robert worked as a maintenance man for the County and retired there. But sadly, his wife died, and he felt he had no reason to live. He was battling cancer at the time and just wanted to lie down and die, but there were feral cats beside the County building, and Robert started feeding them.

Robert only named the first two cats, whom he personally trapped, got spayed or neutered, and got all their shots. But the cats kept coming. And they also kept going, as some would be run over in that high-traffic area.

Checking out loaner traps from Noah’s Ark, Robert knew all the cats that came to eat. New cats would be trapped, sterilized, and their left ear tip would be clipped off while they were under anesthesia.

Three years ago, a spunky woman named Liz Cheli moved to Carlsbad from her hometown in North Dakota to work in the oilfield. She and a woman named Tammy took over the campaigns to trap and spay or neuter cats when various clinics were offering clinics.

Liz and Robert teamed up, and Robert will tell anyone, “The cats saved me.”

This group was known for informative discussions like that.

With the group having lost both LeMoyne Hayes and Larry Coalson this winter, our loosely defined membership dwindling through attrition, and speakers getting harder to find, they decided to call it quits.

Out feeding the cats one morning, Robert said, “There’s got to be an end.” But for Robert, today is not that day. He’ll keep feeding the cats a little longer. For Friday Focus, the end was May 2.