Woman who lost four in fire also touched by fatal bus crash
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By JEFFREY HAGE jeff.hage@lee.net
Saturday, October 14, 2006 8:50 PM CDT
TILDEN — Nancy Pickerign knows all about tragedy. Seven years ago, she lost a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren in a fatal fire in Plum City.
So when she learned of the tragedy of the Chi-Hi band bus crash, her heart — and the hearts of all the members of the Pickerign family — went out to the families of the victims in a way that many others couldn’t.
In addition, her grandson, Ben, was on one of the five school buses coming home from Whitewater in the early-morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 16, 2005.
Ben was unharmed that Sunday morning. But that didn’t change the way Pickerign felt about the crash, because she knew first-hand the tragedy that had struck other families that day.
“As with any tragedy, you never, ever forget,” she said.
“But life goes on, and that’s a good thing.”
Pickerign is a former high school flute player who raised a family of Chi-Hi band members in Chippewa Falls with her husband Bill. The couple were so moved by the events that they joined hundreds of people in making a donation to the Greenhalgh Family Endowment.
The Pickerigns say it was the least they could do as members of a community that had provided so much to them since moving to the area in the early 1960s.
She also discovered how this particular tragedy resonated with the rest of America, too.
“When we were in Florida last February, people at our trailer park told us they knew of the crash from coverage in their newspapers,” she said.
Pickerign looks back on that October day and remembers how the news of the crash impacted her.
“I think we all were (shaken). What a tragedy for the kids,” she said.
It was left to area residents to rise to the challenge.
“I saw this community pull together and support each other and support the school in ways I had never seen before,” Pickerign said.
“It didn’t surprise me. I think that’s what people do in a time of tragedy.”
And she expected nothing less from the people of Chippewa Falls.
“This community does that.”
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