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Pangburn High students leaning on each other
By Tim Bousquet
The Daily Citizen
Tuesday, May 4, 2004 12:43 AM CST
Sarah Jane Haile never saw her daughter in her prom dress.
Her daughter, also named Sarah Haile, left her Pangburn home early Saturday afternoon. The Pangburn High School prom was that night.
"Sarah went to a friend's house to get dressed," said her mother. "Then she went to the prom.
"Then she died."
Haile, 17, and former Pangburn student Frankie Morgan, 18, died when the car they were traveling in struck a pick-up truck on Highway 310, about 10 miles west of Pangburn. Darek Madron, 40, a passenger in the pick-up, also died.
Another Pangburn student, Kayla Hicks, 17, the driver of the car, and Judsonia resident Brandon King, 17, also in the car, were seriously injured. Joy resident Randy Lusk, 44, the driver of the pick-up, was injured as well.
News of the accident spread quickly through town, and by Monday the heavy air of grief hung over the high school.
"We're dealing with this as a family unit," Lou Ann Burge, Pangburn High School counselor, said. "The teachers, the students and the administration are coming together as a family. We talk together, we cry together, sometimes we pray."
Burge and Allen Cook, pastor at the First Baptist Church, were available all day to assist students, but most found their own way to deal with the tragedy.
"What can they do?" said student Carrie Christopher, a sophomore. "Our friend died."
Christopher was with a group of students that had gathered in the school library to mourn Haile's death.
"We cried," she said. "It's hard to deal with."
Students scribbled memorial messages on paper taped to a wall outside the school office, and the flag hung at half mast. The hallways, adorned with yellow ribbons in support of the troops in Iraq and posters announcing the Macho Man Beauty Pageant, were noticeably muted as students moved between classes.
Pangburn, population 564, is a blue-collar town propped atop a bluff overlooking the Little Red River. The modest houses are grouped around a single row of brick buildings that is downtown, and Second Street passes a quiet park on its way to the Dripping Springs boat ramp. The old bridge over the river has been converted to a fishing pier; "Home of the Rainbow Trout," reads the town welcome sign.
Most residents commute the 20 miles to Searcy or Heber Springs for work, said Mayor Farris Wood.
"Not much happens here," Wood said. "Except the Fourth of July picnic. We serve free dinner for whoever comes, and we get about 5,000 people every year. Bill Clinton was here a couple of times. Everyone knows Pangburn because of the Fourth of July.
Wood's office is in the matchbox-sized City Hall, just behind the Pangburn Cafe and one block west of the High School. Two blocks farther is the Haile home, decorated with a religious motif - pictures of Jesus, a crucifix - and photos of family.
"It's not easy to bury your children," said Sarah Haile, mother of the deceased student. "But the Bible says that absence from the body is presence with the lord. They said that Sarah died immediately, so I know she's with the Lord. Knowing that helps."
A member of Searcy's Complete in Christ Church, Sarah was an ardent Christian and member of the school's Bible Club.
"Sarah tried to reach people with the Gospel," said Billy Haile, 19, Sarah's brother. "She was always on the Internet reaching out to pagans, atheists and Hindus, trying to lead them to Christ."
"Sarah was a wonderful, gorgeous young woman, a good Christian," said her mother. "It will be hard to be without her. But our friends and family have been great, coming together, helping us out."
Her daughter was in the school choir, and was to sing a solo at an upcoming performance, Haile said.
"Sarah was a unique individual," Burge said. "She was in the school play, and found she had quite a flair for that. Last year she was kind of quiet and reserved, but she really came out in the play.
"She marched to her own drummer. And I think because of that she was very accepting to other people who marched to their own drummer. She knew how to be a friend, a true friend in every sense of the word, to people who were unique."
Although her parents never saw her in the prom dress, someone took a photograph of Sarah in her lavender dress at the prom, just hours before she died in the same dress. The photo was added to a flyer put together by the Bible Club, and by noon was spread around campus.
"My daughter had gone to her junior prom," wrote Sarah's father, Bill Haile, for the church newsletter. "I know that she was very happy to get to go and I know that it was a dream of hers to be able to dress up like all the other girls, to look her prettiest, and I know that my daughter was as beautiful as any angel that God made... I don't know why the Lord chose this time to call my darling baby home but I know that she is safe in arms of the Lord..."
Sarah and the three students she traveled with had gone to the prom as friends, not dates. After the dance, the four drove to Frankie Morgan's house, which sits on the back side of a knoll about three miles down a dirt road outside Rose Bud. Frankie lived there with his mother, Marguerite Wortham, and stepfather, Dennis Wortham.
"They came here so the boys could change their clothes," said Connie Weaver, a relative. Morgan took off his tux and top hat and changed into street clothes.
"They weren't here but five minutes. His mother saw him leave, and then heard the accident on the [police] scanner. But she thought that couldn't be Frankie, because he hadn't been gone more than 15 minutes."
The family had lived in Pangburn until they moved to Rose Bud last year. Rather than change schools, Morgan opted instead to obtain his General Equivalency Diploma by taking classes at Foothills Technical Institute, said Dennis Wortham.
"He was a good kid, never got into any trouble," he said. "He liked life and everything."
Morgan worked as a driver at Crafton's Furniture in Searcy, and was busy making "all kinds of plans" for the future, said his stepfather.
Growing up Pangburn had left its mark on Morgan.
"He loved fishing," said Wortham. "And boy could he fish. Whenever that boy would fish he would catch something."
Morgan also liked to hunt, and he and Wortham were fixing up an old Mustang in the yard outside their house.
Funeral services for Frankie Morgan will be held at 2 p.m. today at Powell Funeral Home in Searcy. Services for Sarah Haile will be held 10 a.m. Wednesday at Complete in Christ Church in Searcy.
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