Fri, Nov 27 2009
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Published July 01, 2009 09:06 pm - Cynthia Baker Olson, a 1971 graduate of Carthage High School, was among those killed last Friday when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of vehicles on Oklahoma’s Will Rogers Turnpike, killing 10 people. Carthage High School alumna among those killed in pileup By Wally Kennedy
wkennedy@joplinglobe.com Cynthia Baker Olson, a 1971 graduate of Carthage High School, was among those killed last Friday when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of vehicles on Oklahoma’s Will Rogers Turnpike, killing 10 people. Also killed were Olson’s daughter, Shelby Hayes, 35; her 7-year-old grandson, Ethan Hayes; and her son-in-law, Scott Hayes, 38, all of Frisco, Texas. The crash ended three generations of one family. Local friends of Olson, 55, who lived in Crossroads, Texas, were shocked and saddened to learn this week of her death. Cobb Young, a Joplin attorney, said: “We were high-school classmates at Carthage. We all graduated together in the class of 1971. She was a lovely person inside and out. “She moved to Texas, but she would come back for our class reunions. If you were to talk to any of her classmates, they would all say the same thing. She was a lovely person.” Olson, who was widowed, and her daughter’s family were traveling from Texas to Sarcoxie to attend the funeral on Saturday of Olson’s grandfather, Glen Levi Wooten, of Sarcoxie. Tammy Grimm, of Sarcoxie, also a granddaughter of Wooten, said: “They were coming here for the funeral when the accident happened. She was attending her 102-year-old grandfather’s funeral. She was close to her grandfather. “It has been difficult trying to bury your grandfather and have that in the back of your mind. She lost her only daughter and only grandson. Her son-in-law was an only child, too. We didn’t want this tragedy on top of that (the death of her grandfather).” Services for Olson are pending with Housh-Goodwin Funeral Home in Sarcoxie, according to Alisha Harrison, manager of the funeral home. The body is to be cremated. Harrison said the ashes are to be spread on Olson’s mother’s grave in Sarcoxie. Olson held a real-estate broker’s license, working for ExcellerateHRO in Plano, Texas. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is investigating the crash for possible criminal charges, which is routine after a fatality. The patrol has said it did not appear that the driver of the truck, Donald Creed, 76, of the Willard-Ash Grove area, tried to stop his tractor-trailer. An initial report said Creed’s vehicle was traveling at an unsafe speed for traffic conditions. Authorities have said eastbound traffic on the turnpike, near the Oklahoma-Missouri border, was at a standstill because of an earlier minor accident. Also killed were four members of a family from Oklahoma City, Okla., and a couple from Phoenix, Ariz. The couple’s 12-year-old daughter remains at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. She was transferred there from St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin. 
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