Sometimes, your community gets to be a big part of history (see Jim Gray’s column for regular historical tidbits). Other times, it’s merely a small stop along the way to greatness.

This is what happened for me July 15, when I met four young engineers (or engineering students) who were using the Ellsworth American Legion parking lot to do some maintenance on their all-solar-powered electric vehicle.

It definitely made a great human interest story, but it struck deeper chords for me.

You see, my youngest brother is a double-E. That is to say, he’s an electrical engineer. During his college days at the University of Illinois, I had the chance to spend some time in the workshop. He enthusiastically showed me the electric vehicles they were working on.

For him, this passion continued post-graduation, when he amassed a small stable of Twike vehicles.

When I met the quartet of Michigan men who were traveling across the U.S. in an attempt for the Cannonball Run, it brought a smile to my face. I was immediately reminded of my “baby brother” and his college chums.

After the Sun Strider (the name of their vehicle) completed its day, the guys and their support driver (also dubbed “solar dad”) called me from Liberal, where we had a fantastic talk. I quizzed them about the mountains (I road tripped with my youngest brother across mountains to California in a manual Nissan Sentra; we almost didn’t make it up the mountain). Needless to say, I had plenty of questions about the logistics.

After the interview, the group sent me a nice text and photo. I adopted them as my little brothers then and there.

Since then, I’ve been following their progress on social media. They were also kindly texting me throughout the rest of the week.

About 4 p.m. Sunday, I texted them words of encouragement, and they replied with an enthusiastic “35 to go.”

As I type this Sunday night, I’m watching the replay of their live from about 6:43 p.m. CST as Will Jones pulled into the finish line in Los Angeles.

This is the first completely solar-powered vehicle to make the trip from New York to LA, and our little hamlet of Ellsworth was a stop along the way. Total driving time: 13 days, 15 hours and 19 minutes.

As a small-town county newspaper, we cover primarily local events. National and international events or politics don’t often find a home in the pages of our newspaper. But in this instance, it felt important to me. Not only because these guys reminded me of my brother and his college cronies, but because the world is hard right now. It feels like there is division and malice around many corners. I wanted to use the small corner of my world to share some good news ... that the Sun Srider was the first solar-powered vehicle to make the Cannonball Run ... and it stopped here in Ellsworth.

High five to the drivers, Danny Ezzo, Brett Cesar, Kyle Samluk and Will Jones. We know others will chase this record, but we want to celebrate this milestone with you, and we are honored that our community could be a small stop in this monumental journey.

Karen Bonar Publisher