Published: August 24, 2008 11:35 pm      

Families, friends pay tribute to crash victims

Brian Byrd was one of the first local youths to play baseball at Richmond’s Lake Reba Park, his sister Melissa said Sunday evening as the city dedicated its memorial to victims of Flight 5191, just inside the park’s entrance.

The sounds of play at nearby ball fields could be heard as the ceremony took place.

As an adult, Byrd served as a youth league coach at the park for teams on which his son and nephews played, his sister said. She was the only family member to address the crowd of about 80 who attended the dedication.

Byrd and his fiancée Judy Rains, along with Cecile Moscoe — who were among the 49 who died with the airliner crashed Aug. 27, 2006 — also played at the park as members of the same softball team.

“I feel this is where God wanted this memorial to be,” said Byrd’s mother Sue after the dedication. “We didn’t know that Brian, Judy and Cecile had been on the same softball team until we met Cecile’s mother who showed us a team picture.”

Three other Madison County residents, Carole Bizzack, Lynda McKee and Vickey Washington, also died in the crash.

Mayor Connie Lawson said each had contributed to the life of Richmond.

Bizzack was the wife of an Eastern Kentucky University regent.

McKee was the volunteer manager of Pattie A. Clay Regional Medical Center’s gift shop and had turned it into a profitable operation that donated funds to the hospital.

Moscoe, an employee of Gall’s in Lexington, was on her way to New Orleans to deliver police uniforms to the city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina just a year earlier.

Rains operated a dog grooming and breeding business.

Washington, recently retired from the U.S. military, was preparing to become a foster parent with her husband.

The mayor said she was looking for a way to memorialize the six crash victims when Boy Scout leader Whitney Dunlap told her he was looking for Eagle Scout projects.

She suggested a Flight 5191 memorial, and he said, “That’s it.”

Eagle Scout candidate Brian Huybers, then a junior at Madison Central High School, connected with fountain designer Russell Sitter, who sketched a concept. In February, Huybers began addressing civic groups to raise funds for the $27,000 monument.

“I’m very proud of Brian Huybers,” said J.T. Washington, Vickey Washington’s husband. “I remember how nervous he was when he first addressed a meeting of family members. His voice shook then, but you heard how clearly he spoke this evening.”

Huybers’ many public presentations on behalf of the memorial have helped him mature and become self confident, Washington said.

Huybers presented a small cube with an image of the memorial to a representative of each victim’s family.

“As long as our community has young people of vision such as Brian Huybers, its future is secure,” said Richmond Mayor Pro Tem Robert Blythe, who presided at the dedication.

Forty-nine doves are carved into the fountain’s central granite shaft, down which water flows. An explanatory plaque is attached to the monument’s front, with plaques for each of the victims on six other sides. The individual plaques contain the names of ages of the victims, but not all yet include other personal information.

The monuments’ doves all soar upward, Sitter pointed out.

“After people read the plaques and then raise their eyes to look at the fountain, I want them to recognize (the victims’) ultimate destination,” he said.

As Greg Slayton sang “In the Arms of the Angel” at the dedication’s conclusion, some family members wept and a group of Boy Scouts released six white doves that had been holding in two cages.

The doves didn’t take flight, however. They stayed near the fountain. Later, in the twilight, one flew up to a perch on a nearby board fence. It was preparing to roost for the night.

A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” as the crowded dispersed.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 623-1669, Ext. 267.