BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

ALEXANDRIA - Twenty years ago today, fire swept through the Beverly Hills Supper Club, killing 165, injuring scores more and creating a tragedy whose repercussions still ripple through the Tristate.

In a night marked by horror and heroics, fire and rescue units from virtually every Northern Kentucky city would race to the Southgate hilltop in a desperate attempt to save lives.

Tonight, the victims of the region's deadliest blaze, and their rescuers, will be remembered at a memorial service. The service is 7:30 p.m. at St. Mary Church in Alexandria.

"Not only did we lose the place we loved to work, we also lost 10 of our fellow employees," said Wayne Dammert, the former Beverly Hills banquet captain who organized the service. "Every employee there did their best to help people get out, but somehow it just wasn't enough."

The 61-year-old Alexandria man estimates he helped 100 people to safety, but he still despairs over the ones he couldn't save. "Out in the garden area, I saw at least 100 bodies with no one around them," Mr. Dammert recalled. "So I said to a waitress, 'Will you pray over these bodies with me?' "

Tonight, the Hamilton County sheriff's bagpipe honor guard and honor guards from the Cincinnati Police Division, Northern Kentucky Firefighters Association and Boone County Police Department will take part in the service.

Ten ministers and priests and retired Bishop William Hughes are scheduled to take part in the service, as well as children orphaned by the blaze.

Scheduled speakers include former Kentucky Gov. Julian Carroll, who was governor at the time of the fire; U.S. Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky.; U.S. Rep. Jim Bunning, R-Southgate; Stan Chesley, the lawyer who became known as the "master of disaster" after winning $50 million for fire victims and their survivors; and Campbell Judge-executive Ken Paul, the former Southgate mayor catapulted into the national spotlight by the fire.

Mr. Paul said he will forever remember rounding the hillside that night and seeing "The Showplace of the Nation" engulfed in flames, watching rescue workers stack bodies in a garden "that looked more like a war zone," and gazing down the hillside at dawn into a sea of firetrucks and police cruisers lining the club's driveway and U.S. 27.

"In just a matter of hours, this showplace where everyone was in tuxes and formals became a house of death," Mr. Paul said. "All of a sudden, you realize how fragile life is."

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