Hundreds gather to pay tribute to tornado victims, emergency workers

May 11, 2009 07:37 am

— By Derek Spellman
dspellman@joplinglobe.com
SENECA, Mo. — For Kyle Hinz and his family, Sunday was part of the healing process.
A year has passed since Hinz’s stepson and fellow firefighter Tyler Casey died of injuries he suffered May 10, 2008. Casey, a volunteer firefighter with the Seneca Area Fire Protection District and a storm spotter, was fatally injured while warning motorists to seek shelter from last year’s tornado.
After a memorial service Sunday, Hinz said his wife, Rayma Hinz, got to meet two of the people her 21-year-old son saved. Fourteen people in Newton County died in the storm, all of them within a couple of miles of the Highway 43 and Iris Road intersection.
Kyle Hinz said it has been difficult for his wife to even drive by that intersection, which is now home to a memorial honoring her son and the other 13 victims.
“It gives a little closure,” Kyle Hinz said. “This is the first time she has been here.”
‘God bless you all’
Sunday’s service, doubling as a remembrance of the victims and a gesture of thanks to first responders, drew hundreds to the memorial site, located right next to Lant’s Feed Store at the Iris Road-Highway 43 intersection. The store, which was shattered by last year’s storm and rebuilt on the original site, emerged as a symbol of recovery.
So did its owners, Bill Lant and Jane Lant. Bill Lant spearheaded the creation of the memorial, which features a flag, some landscaping and a memorial stone bearing the 14 names of the dead.
Bill Lant said Sunday was about thanking people, many of them strangers, for their aid in the storm’s wake.
“What can I say to these first responders and these firefighters?” Lant told the crowd Sunday, beginning a litany of people including unknown volunteers and unknown motorists who honked their horns as the couple rebuilt their store over the summer.
“God bless you all,” Lant concluded.
Sunday’s service included speeches from state Sen. Gary Nodler, state House Speaker Ron Richard, and state Reps. Kevin Wilson and Marilyn Ruestman. Afterward, representatives of the various emergency services placed wreaths on the memorial.
They were followed by family and friends of most of the 14 survivors who took turns placing flowers on the memorial.
Among those attending were Wess Peterson and his wife, Lori. The couple were honoring Wess Peterson’s father, Rockie Peterson, 64. The couple also were business partners with Rockie Peterson.
The couple were with him when the May 10 tornado drove them all to seek shelter in a barn on the Peterson farmsteads, near Falcon and Iris roads. Rockie Peterson was killed by a huge tree that came crashing through the barn.
“Every day is a little better,” Lori Peterson said after Sunday’s service.
Several operations are contained in the Peterson farmsteads northeast of Racine. Some deal in the breeding and sale of goats. One deals in equipment, such as pens, for goats and small stock.
Lori Peterson said much rebuilding has been done over the past year. A new barn and pens have been erected, although she noted the farm will “never be the same.”
In the aftermath of the storm, the family found some solace in tending to the needs of their herd.
“Plowing forward,” Lori Peterson said when asked how the family had coped. “That push to stay in business and stay busy.”
Closure
Ted Brown said it was “very hard” when he lost his sister, Linda Hasty, to the storm last year. Hasty, 59, died when the tornado destroyed her rural Seneca mobile home.
“It tore me apart,” Brown said. “It really did.”
He said he would never forget his sister, but that Sunday’s service did bring him a measure of closure.
Ruby Bilke, 76, was traveling to a wedding last May 10 with her daughter Kathy Rountree, 47, her husband, Richard Rountree, 52, and their son Clayton, 13. They were driving through the Highway 43-Iris Road intersection when the storm descended. All four died and were remembered Sunday.
Ruby Bilke’s son, Larry Bilke, said he and Bill Lant talked after the ceremony about having the families of the victims return next year to plant a tree in memory of those lost.
“This was a central place,” Bilke said of the memorial location. “Everybody relates to this place now.”
Asked about his family’s coping, Bilke said: “We’re doing good. We are strong in our faith.”
Kyle Hinz said the community response had helped his family, particularly since May 10, 2008, was “extremely rough on everybody.”
Casey had followed in Kyle Hinz’s footsteps. He had been a firefighter for three years before his death and was talking about making it into a career, Hinz said.
Reflecting on it, Hinz said it has struck him now how alike they were.
“He wanted to help people,” he said. “That’s what he wanted to do.”

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