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Annual tradition moves indoors

Crowds of volunteers stood outside in the steady rain while a parade of school buses led by a police escort made their way towards the front doors of Detention at The Elementary Friday, May 12.

While Dusty’s Day is typically a day of outdoor fun for area special needs children hosted by The Dusty Elam Foundation at the Elam Farm, the weather just wouldn’t cooperate this year.

Event organizer Chris Elam said it was important that the foundation be able to switch gears, rather than cancel the event that serves children in Coffee County Schools, Manchester City Schools and Tullahoma City Schools. The event is held the day before The Dusty Elam Foundation Benefit, which is open to all community members.

“We are here for these kids, and we want to make it a special day for them,” he said. “It is kind of like their ballgame or their Super Bowl.”

“It is all about them and that is why we weren’t going to let it go this year, let rain bother us,” Elam added. “We were going to go somewhere.”

A full-scale family entertainment venue, Detention at The Elementary with its arcade complete with bumper cars, arcade games, and gym full of inflatables seemed like the logical solution.

The Elementary owner Bernadette Doud said members of the foundation came by Thursday to discuss moving the event to The Elementary, located at 615 School St. in Morrison.

“We had Tullahoma school here that day and we pretty much had schools coming in every day for their end of the year field trips and stuff,” she said.

Doud said fortunately Friday was still open.

“They wanted to know if we would consider letting them come here and what we could do and how we could accommodate, and we walked around and discussed it and here we are,” Doud said.

With about 330 kids and at least 500 people in total, it is one of the largest events hosted at The Elementary to date.

Chris Elam said the Dusty Day event the Friday before the foundation’s benefit began about seven years ago.

“We were coming back from a Special Olympics they do in Tullahoma and Allison Chumley, a member of the foundation, she said hey, we have all this stuff out (at the farm) already and a lot of these kids don’t get to come on Saturday, so why don’t we bus those kids out there,” he said. “They did the parade through town and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”

Founded in 2005, the Dusty Elam Foundation honors the memory of the late Dusty Elam, an aspiring special education teacher who died in a motorcycle accident in 2004 at 22-years-old.

Dusty’s mother Sharon Elam said Friday that some of Dusty’s friends came together on the anniversary of his death, and the idea for the Dusty Elam Foundation was born.

“Somebody came up with the idea, why don’t we do a little fundraiser every year and that is kind of how it got started,” she said. “We went around to people and got donations and we had this silent auction. I think the first year we raised $4-5,000 and then every year it has just kept growing and growing.”

While the Dusty Elam Foundation is involved in several different aspects of community giving, Sharon Elam said her favorite is being able to purchase Christmas gifts for children in need each year. Something that Sharon said was inspired by a conversation she had with her during his last Christmas.

“For some reason Dusty was a real outgoing person and he was all about Christmas and he hunted and did every sport and he was always excited to get something new for hunting,” Sharon Elam said. “I asked him that year, what do you want me to get you for Christmas this year, and he sat there a minute and he said, mom don’t get me anything, take that money and buy something for kids that don’t have anything.”

“When he was killed in March that just stuck in my head,” she added.

While 2023 marked a rainy Dusty Day, the 19th Annual Dusty Elam Foundation Benefit was a sunny day at the Elam Farm featuring field events, inflatables, games and a silent and live auction.

Justin Reed, aka “The Balloon Dude” was also on hand making everything from dogs to elephants and parrots.

“This is my third Dusty Elam Benefit and it is wonderful,” Reed said during the event Saturday. “Of course, yesterday is the fun day for the kids, that is really the fun part of the two-day gig. It is a community here. You don’t know everybody here, but everybody here likes that here and that is kind of nice because you don’t get that everywhere.”

Sharon Elam said she knows Dusty would be happy to see how the foundation has grown throughout the years, and all the children it helps.

“I think he is just smiling,” she said. “I try to figure out “why” and I thought this has got to be it, this is the reason.”