rocketraider

http://www.sovanow.com/index.php?/ne...mas_eve_crash/

Ryan was a neighbor kid at my place in Halifax County. Promising young ballplayer and good-hearted kid. I know the family of the boy who was driving too.

There's times I wonder if the Blue Comet baseball team is cursed. Ryan is the fifth team member to die in a car crash in six years.

ent72olds

That's just a shame....way to young....

Jamesbo

So Sorry to hear this sad news, Prayers sent

rocketraider

Appreciated. As said Ryan was a good-hearted kid. The church where his funeral was held today seats 600 and I'm told it was standing room only and overflow. But it usually is for a young person, especially one who dies unnaturally.

At the high school sports award banquet a couple months back, they did special remembrance for the other four baseball players who had died in crashes. Surely then no one expected this.

Dated the Burkholder boy's aunt for a time in the late 70s and was friends with his dad and uncle too. Just a tragic mess all around.

BIGJERR

Prayers sent.........

I have a question.....are you somewhat out in the country?
We have a town just north of my home town who has had a rash of crashes like this one...
Mostly single vehicle crashes......i think the young driver along with gravel and rural roads makes young drivers more likely to have a mistake driving, proving fatal........Makes me very sad for our local young people and others like your young man.......Buckle up pay attention to the road youngsters.....

rocketraider

Yeah, Jerr, we're pretty rural out here. The crash was about 20 miles from here on a winding tarmac country road without lane striping, as a lot of secondary roads here are. State Police have said speed was a factor in this crash but thankfully no alcohol involved. They'd been at another friend's house for Christmas Eve (another baseball player) and were headed home. Halifax is a large rural county, 50 miles across in any direction with only one high school, so odds are your friends are going to be halfway across the county.

I was headed home from my own family's stuff Christmas Day night and saw the funeral signs on the highway at their driveway. I wondered then who had passed at Christmas- it's a private road with four families living on it and knew one of them was elderly in poor health. Then the next morning you find out it was the strapping high school kid who always wanted you to take him fishing.

Just can't imagine getting a call like this on Christmas.

BIGJERR

Very sad......We have had more than our share here also.....