The solemn rite took place around a fountain dedicated to those who suffered the accident on the Marshall’s Huntington campus. As a component of an annual rite, the fountain became extinct at the end of service and will be re-lit in the spring.
“This and the source are the center of Marshall University,” said the university’s president, Jerome Gilbert. “It’s the campus activity center.
“Today is a sacred place. “
On November 14, 1970, the chartered plane crashed in fog and rain on a hill approaching an airport near Huntington when the team was returning from a game in East Carolina, killing the other 75 people on board.
On Saturday, 75 candles surrounded the fountain. No more children, fathers, mothers, companions and fraternity brothers. Those affected included 36 football players and 39 school administrators, coaches, supporters, spouses and team members. White roses were placed near the fountain when the call was read from each of the victims. Ceremony.
Marshall’s former cheerleader, Lucianne Kautz Call, lost her father, Charlie E. Kautz, who was the university’s sporting director. He graduated from Marshall in 1971.
“We lost one or more members of the family circle,” said Call, the main speaker of the ceremony. “Since then, we have become a circle of relatives.
Marshall made the decision to continue with the football program, but for college and the community at large, he has left a massive void: some who stayed off the flight, didn’t do the football program, or lost the enjoyments spent the next five decades asking unanswered questions.
“Yes, we cried. Yes, we’re suffering,” Marshall’s athletic director Mike Hamrick said. “This occasion taught me to celebrate life. That’s what we’re doing today. “
Kenova’s place and Grammy Award winner Michael W. Smith, he opened the rite by doing an “Amazing Grace” song. He told the public he was thirteen when the plane crashed 8 minutes from his house.
“It replaced my life forever,” Smith said. “The city is dead. But the city came back.
The reconstruction of the football program is the theme of the 2006 film “We Are Marshall”, beginning with Matthew McConaughey.
“50 years,” McConaughey Saturday on Twitter. Never forget, never defeated. We’re Marshall. “
The rite was conducted by invitation only due to the coronavirus pandemic and published online. Among the spectators at the fountain were four East Carolina football players who played in that 1970 game.
On Friday, the 36 players who died in the turn of destination earned Marshall diplomas in their fields of study. Existing team members also visited a nearby cemetery, where six players from the 1970 team whose bodies were never known were buried.
And on Saturday, the 16-ranked team won, beating Middle Tennessee 42-14.
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