Loss all too familiar for Twinfield
Principal finds himself ushering community through grief, again
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PHOTO BY KYLE MARTEL Mary McKeever embraces frien |
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By Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff - Published: June 28, 2009
MARSHFIELD – For its size, the Twinfield Union School community has absorbed what seems to be a high number of tragic deaths in recent years.
At least six students or young alumni from the rural pre-K-through-12 school have been killed in the last nine years in motor vehicle accidents. With the small size and closeness of the school, those deaths hit the community hard, said Twinfield principal Owen Bradley.
Bradley, a Plainfield resident and Twinfield graduate himself, has been principal of the school for 10 years and has found himself enmeshed in the grieving process in each case.
And it never gets easier.
"It's horrific to see the faces of the young people and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who have to try to understand this, and it's sort of beyond understanding," Bradley said. "The big lesson is that the strength of the community is amazing, and any issues people may have had with each other are set aside and people hug and console each other and healing happens. I don't think the grief of the family ever goes away, but I think they begin to heal."
That process of mourning and remembering has been taking place during the last week following the death of Caidin McKeever.
The 17-year-old Montpelier resident was killed in a car accident early Tuesday morning, just three days after he graduated from Twinfield. The car McKeever was driving hit a tree in the village of Plainfield, one of the towns that sends its kids to Twinfield.
Four passengers were injured but survived. Two of them were Twinfield alumni, said Bradley.
In the wake of the accident, the members of the Twinfield community have once again rallied around each other.
There was a "powerful" vigil in Plainfield on Tuesday night, Bradley said. The gathering drew about 200 people and was organized by students and friends of McKeever, he added. The ceremony took place at Grace United Methodist Church, and a shrine of flowers and a photo of McKeever still sits on the stone wall in front of the church.
"It was completely student organized and very informal," said Bradley. "It was really a time to be together and support each other."
On Saturday, hundreds of people gather in the school gym for a celebration of McKeever's life. McKeever's friends and schoolmates played music, and friends, family, school staff and community members share memories of McKeever and thoughts on his passing.
McKeever's parents, Peter Thomas and Mary McKeever, spoke.
"I'm Caidin's dad and I will always be Caidin's dad," Thomas said.
Thomas thanked those who were gathered in the gym for their outpouring of kindness and love.
Thomas added that he was pleased by the light of all the candles at Tuesday's ceremony.
"I thought Tuesday was overwhelming," he said.
Kathy Mercurio, who used to be the nurse at Twinfield and once ran the Plainfield Teen Center, recalled that before the 2009 Twinfield graduation she read a poem called "Blessing" by John O'Donohue to the graduating class.
"When I finished reading and looked up, Caidin had the biggest smile and he was just staring at me," said Mercurio.
Those who knew McKeever describe him as a fun-loving, happy, "sweet" young man.
"He was a light," said Mercurio.
Offering comfort
The recent tragedy is too familiar for Bradley and other members of the Twinfield community, and unfortunately the names are starting to form a list: James Cook, Michael DeRienzo, Autumn Whitehouse, Krystian Peduzzi, Adam Roberts and now McKeever.
Whitehouse, Roberts and Peduzzi were Twinfield students when they died and the others were graduates, all of them still young.
*Whitehouse was an 18-year-old senior who died in 2005 when the car she was driving hit a telephone pole in Marshfield.
Roberts was 16 years old and a passenger in a car being driven by an intoxicated friend that crashed in 2000.
Peduzzi, 16, died in a head-on car crash on Valentines Day 2002.
DeRienzo was hit by a plow truck in December 2007 as he walked near Hope Cemetery in Barre.
Cook, a 2006 graduate, died recently after being hit by a drunk driver in Virginia, said Bradley.
Even when a person is no longer a student, members of the school community still suffer, said Bradley, especially with deaths of alumni like Cook or DeRienzo, who were still in their early 20s. And McKeever was technically an alumnus – but only by a few days.
"We're such a small town, and the school was the center of the place and they were so young that they still have siblings or friends" at the school or relationships they made with teachers, said Bradley.
Bradley didn't plan to be at the forefront in the aftermath of tragic events when he became a principal, but so far it has come with the territory. He officiated the Celebration of Life ceremony on Saturday.
"I didn't become a leader to do this, but I do feel like I was called to be the leader that I am, and I don't think we get to choose what we have to lead on," said Bradley. "Having history and deep roots in community, I know folks, and we've been through a lot together. While you don't learn it at principal school, you know as a human being that when somebody is hurt, you console them and do your best to try to learn from the tragedy."
The list of tragedies has left Bradley wondering if Twinfield is unique or if other rural areas in the state where kids do so much driving have had the same experience.
Mercurio wondered if curvy Route 2, which runs right in front of the school, has something to do with it.
The string of tragic events is all the more striking when Twinfield's size is considered. Twinfield's graduating classes in recent years have had about 30 students, and enrollment for the elementary, middle and high school currently is only 433 students.
Last week's accident is still under investigation. It's possible alcohol played a role in the crash, but it's not certain, police said. Police are awaiting the results of a toxicology test and won't know for sure what role, if any, alcohol played until they get the results.
Police said no one in the 2000 Honda Civic that McKeever was driving were wearing their seat belts, but the mother of one of the passengers in the accident disputes that, pointing out that the chest fractures her son suffered were caused by the seat belt.
Speed also may have been a factor, police said.
Bradley said the school takes a proactive approach to try to keep kids safe.
"I talk to kids regularly about buckling up and driving slowly," he said.
It will be too bad if it turns out the people in the accident last week weren't wearing their seat belts, he said.
"If they weren't wearing seat belts, it seems like such a simple thing to do," he said.
There are groups at school that are designed to educate students about making good choices about traffic safety and drugs and alcohol, said Bradley.
Chapters of Students Against Destructive Decisions and the Vermont Teen Leadership Safety Program are both active at the school, he said.
But Bradley hopes to continue to try to prevent what he called a "re-occurance of tragedies."
"We're going to put our heads together this summer and try to continue the work we're doing and build on safety," he said.
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