By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

AKRON, Ind. — When the little pink tractor – a 1949 Farmall C, to be specific – inched its way through Akron’s annual Fourth of July parade, it was greeted with a chorus of questions and comments, such as “Why in the world would anyone paint a tractor pink?” and
“I’ll bet the owner is mad about that color.”

A young teen called to a friend, “Get a picture of that pink tractor! It’s the cutest thing I ever saw!”

But the comments quickly died down when parade watchers saw pink ribbons embroidered on the tractor’s large white umbrella and emblazoned on a black flag mounted on its hitch – the universal emblem of breast cancer awareness. The little pink tractor was more than an irrepressible flight of fancy; it was a statement on wheels.

Driving the tractor was Amy Murphy, a 40-year-old mother of two who only three months earlier had been diagnosed with breast cancer. A partial mastectomy and radiation treatments had been successful.

While she felt better than she had for a long time, the pink tractor wasn’t her idea. Credit for that went to her father, Ned Heighway, who purchased the tractor two years earlier and tucked it in the corner of his barn.

“I didn’t like Cs and I didn’t want the tractor; I just ended up with it,” he said. At the time one of his granddaughters suggested he paint it pink, to which he grumbled, “I’m not painting any tractor pink.”

Time marched on; Amy’s diagnosis, a brutal awakening to the realities of cancer, set Heighway to thinking. “How’d you like a Pepto Bismol-pink tractor?” he asked her.

She simply laughed; this, coming from the man who swore he’d never paint a tractor pink. But when he came home with a dab of pink paint on his finger and told her that was the color the tractor would be, she knew he was serious.

With the help of Amy’s husband, Mike, Heighway started salvaging the tractor that, while old, was not considered collectible. Within two weeks, they had it standing tall.

“It’s a miracle the paint was dry in time for the parade,” Heighway said.

He left the engine area black to obscure oil stains. The umbrella came from a man in Missouri who donated brackets and shipping when he heard why Heighway wanted it. Another of Heighway’s daughters embroidered the ribbons on it.

The collaborative effort paid off when Amy, with her beaming husband at her side, drove through the parade. It was a triumphant ride for both.

Heighway, the reluctant tractor owner, has come to view the C on the pink Farmall as standing for Cancer. He has displayed it at area fairs where people sometimes laugh until they understand why it is pink. He’s even had people want to touch it, as if forming a connection to someone with cancer.

“I aim to take it to a lot of shows next year,” Heighway said. “It’s a good way to make more people aware of cancer.”