Student killed in crash
Bus, pickup collide minutes from school
Wednesday, April 22, 1998BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Investigators look over the crash site.
(Patrick Reddy photo)
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NICHOLSON, Ky. -- A kind, quiet high school junior died Tuesday afternoon when he was hit by a bus full of students, some who had just left the same school.
Mark "Allen" Van Horn, who recently celebrated his 17th birthday, was killed just minutes after he left Simon Kenton High School.
Allen, a member of the Future Farmers of America, made his usual after-school visit to his agriculture teacher about 2:30.
"He was a fine young man," said the teacher, Doug Watson. "He was someone you could depend on and somebody you could trust."
Allen Van Horn
John Ball
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Twenty minutes after they talked, Kenton County Police were called to the intersection of Ky. 17 and Moffett Road. Allen would be pronounced dead there. It was the intersection of the highway he traveled daily to school and the road where he lived with his family.
Allen was riding in a pickup with a friend, John Ball, 18, of Morning View. John, also a junior, was taken to University Hospital by Air Care helicopter. He was in critical condition this morning.
Eight of the 36 students on Bus 61 were taken to St. Elizabeth Medical Center South in Edgewood, where they were treated and released. Police said the bus riders came from two Kenton County schools -- Twenhofel Middle School and Simon Kenton High School.
School officials described the bus driver, Maxie Wolfinbarger, 51, of Independence, as a veteran with a good record. She was heading south on Ky. 17 and turning left onto Moffett Road when her bus hit the boys. The teen-agers were headed north on the highway.
Police think Ms. Wolfinbarger pulled into the truck's path, said Capt. Ed Butler. But any decision on charges will wait, he said, until other factors are determined, such as the truck's speed. Police held off on confirming the victims' names until officers spoke with each boy's family.
Bus driver Maxie Wolfinbarger, right.
(Patrick Reddy photo)
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But bystanders -- many of them Simon Kenton students -- all knew the black Chevy S-10 pickup was John's. They weren't sure who was with him at first, but word quickly circulated that Allen was the dead passenger under the white sheet.
Truck driver Gary Brown was talking on his CB radio as he drove along Moffett Road when he looked up and saw the wreck. He jumped down out of his truck and ran to the wreck, thinking first that he should help get the passengers off the bus.
That would be important, he thought, both in case the bus caught fire or blew up and to get the children away from the grisly sight. He looked into the demolished pickup and knew the injuries would be very bad, he said. He helped get the students out of the bus'back door and into Johnny's Complete Auto Repair, just feet away from the wreck.
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"It was a bad sight to see," Mr. Brown said. "I wouldn't want my kid to see what was in that truck. Some parents are going to be in bad shape."
Rescue workers had to cut off the top of the truck to reach the victims.
As Brent Ferrell, 16, stood in a field watching officers reconstruct the accident, he remembered talking to Allen just a few hours before, at school. The conversation wasn't much, just the usual, "Hey, how's it going?" Brent said.
He wished he'd said more, something important. "You just don't think you're not going to talk to somebody again," he said.
Later Tuesday night, Mr. Watson's son, Harvey, pulled pictures from a winter dance out of his wallet. John and Allen posed with their pretty, dressed-up dates. The shots were taken on a Saturday night less than three months ago.
John wore a black cowboy hat.
Printed across the bottom of the pictures: "Remember me this way."
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