Pulling for a cure for cancer

By ELISE FRANCO

For Rita Kibler, the drive to keep going comes from a souped-up engine of a pink tractor.

CANFIELD — It doesn’t matter that Rita Kibler’s antique tractor is pink.

It still pulls better and holds more significance than most she has competed against.

“She’s special,” said Kibler, 54, of Warren. “No one is allowed to pull her but me.”

“Pinky,” a B-class first- and second-place award winner several times over, was built for Kibler by her husband, Garry, as a way to help her cope with breast cancer.

“We bought one already built, and Rita came up with the idea to paint it pink,” he said. “I told her, ‘There’s no way you’re painting this one, but I’ll build you one.’”

The 1941 Farmall H tractor with the 65-horsepower engine was painted pink by Rita and reads, “Rita’s Hope, Pullin’ for a Cure.”

She said it took some time to think of a name that really fit.

“We have a border collie named Hope,” she said. “My husband and I were sitting there trying to think of a name, and it just kind of came to us at the same time.”

Once meant to be a symbol of her survival, she said the custom- painted tractor is now a symbol of her ongoing battle.

Diagnosed in the early 1990s, she’s undergoing treatment at the Cleveland Clinic for her third bout with the cancer, which has spread to her left lung.

“Some people laugh at it for being pink, but they don’t understand why,” she said. “It’s not pink to be funny. It’s pink because I have breast cancer.”

Rita and Garry live and work on Kibler Dairy Farm, and she said tractor pulling has been somewhat of a family affair.

Her husband and their son, Cory, pull other Farmalls on the circuit.

Since she’s been sick, Rita said she hasn’t been able to do many of the jobs around the farm that she was once responsible for, such as milking the 300 dairy cows the family owns.

“I don’t do near what I used to,” she said. “I used to work down in the barn and in the field, but I guess you could say I am retired from that now.”

Rita said in addition to pulling “Pinky,” she takes the tractor to Relay For Life events and rides it in parades.

She said she is sometimes overwhelmed with the reaction she gets from the crowd.

“It makes me feel so good when it gets so much attention,” she said. “But then it reminds me of why it’s getting attention, so I’ll be driving down the road crying.

“Sometimes it just gets to be so overwhelming.”

Garry said seeing his wife pull the tractor she loves so much is a wonderful feeling, and he gets excited when she does well.

“It was going to encourage her to keep going, so I was more than happy to build it for her,” he said. “I really enjoy watching her pull.”

Garry said one of his favorite things to see while his wife is pulling are the men in the crowd going as crazy for her as the women, and Rita agrees.

“Even the guys yell and scream for it,” she said. “It gets a lot more attention than I thought it would.”

Rita said she goes to the Cleveland Clinic every three weeks for chemotherapy and tests, and she has to take a pill at home every day.

“The spot on my lung has changed and grown, so I am going up on Tuesday for some tests,” she said. “But I have every faith in my doctors, and I like to be optimistic.”

efranco@vindy.com