Published: February 22, 2008 11:53 pm            

Four lively daughters keep Central City couple busy

CENTRAL CITY — With four busy girls age 10 and under, a visit to the Gibbons family mobile home can be an adventure.

A working couple, Mike and Vicki Gibbons have another full-time job when they get home, caring for Kayla, 10; Amber, 8; Jenna, 5; and Haley, 3.

They maintain their sanity by keeping their girls active and being involved in their lives.

Vicki is a Brownie leader for Amber’s Brownie Troop 958.

Kayla is in Junior Girl Scout Troop 962 and Jenna is a Daisy in Troop 768.

“Daddy is going to be Jenna’s T-ball coach,” Kayla volunteers.

Although never seriously involved in organized baseball, Mike was asked to coach the Central City Little League T-ball team this summer. Amber and Jenna play in their age division of the Little League program.

“This is going to be my first year,” Mike says. “They had nobody else to fill in, but I have another parent to help.”

He hopes to be able to use a pitching machine to build additional skills during some of the practices.

Amber and Haley also play spring soccer through the American Youth Soccer Organization in Central City.

Both girls play during the winter at a Saturday youth basketball program at Shade-Central City High School. Instructors and coaches include the school’s varsity basketball players.

Community involvement is one of the bonuses of small-town living. Since many of the soccer players also are basketball and baseball players, families easily build support systems.

“Being in a small community, there are good points and there are bad points,” Vicki says. “You know everybody, and that can be good. It’s very friendly.”

Mike has been a Central City resident for most of his life.

A graduate of Shade-Central City High School, he is one of three full-time borough employees. Duties include garbage pickup, snow plowing and street maintenance.

Although he left the job to try his hand as an over-the-road truck driver, the time away from family “got old.”

He moved to the St. Clairsville, Ohio, area shortly after high school, where he got a job at a Shoney’s restaurant. That’s where he met Vicki, who grew up in nearby Bellaire, Ohio, on the Ohio River south of Wheeling, W.Va.

They were married there.

Kayla and Amber were born in a Wheeling hospital before the couple moved to Windber, and then to Central City. Jenna and Haley were born in the former UPMC Lee Regional.

“I lived in Windber?” Amber says, wrinkling her nose.

“Just for a few months when you were a baby,” Vicki answers.

Kayla says she likes it in Central City because it’s easy to make new friends.

Bored with the biography lessons, Amber bounces off to the kitchen returning with a couple of ceramic art projects.

“See what I made,” she brags.

“Hey, I made the same things,” Kayla protests, jumping up to find hers.

Calmly diffusing the issue through distraction, her mother suggests Amber go find her flute to show off. She’s taking lessons at school.

The cramped Statler Street home is filled with family-oriented distractions. Although the entertainment center includes a big television and video game system, the first thing Amber grabs is a board game, pulled from a stack under the TV.

“I like to bake in my Easy-Bake Oven,” Kayla pipes up. “In the summer, Daddy comes outside and plays ball with us.”

“You don’t have to talk to us,” her mother says, smiling. “They have all the answers.”

        

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