MAYFLOWER — Ministers and Mayflower High School students will gather at 7:30 a.m. Monday at the gymnasium on the one-year anniversary of the area’s deadly tornado to dedicate a stone marker in memory of the event.
“It’s a prayer and remembrance of the tornado last year, and the families in our community and what they went through and how much we’ve grown from that,” said senior Ashley Raney, president of the Student Council.
Mayflower-area churches collaborated to pay for the granite marker, which will be placed in front of the Eagle statue at the gymnasium. The Rev. David Fox, pastor of Mayflower First Baptist Church, was in charge of ordering the monument.
“It’s just a beautiful, large granite stone,” Fox said. Etched in the stone are the words “We Remember,” and it has “April 27, 2014, tornado” on it.
“It says tornado. We thought about leaving that off, but we thought, no, for generations to come, they need to know that,” he said. “It’s really for the school and the community, to say something very significant took place on this date.”
Sixteen people were killed in Arkansas that day, including 12 in Faulkner County. Of those, eight were in Vilonia and three in Mayflower. Mayflower victims were Mark Bradley, 51; Helen Greer, 72; and Bob Oliver, 82. A newborn infant died, who was born to a Conway woman injured in the tornado.
The stone also has the head of an Eagle, the school mascot, and underneath that is the Scripture Isaiah 40:31: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles.”
“In large letters, it says Mayflower Strong,” Fox said. “It’s been the recurring theme through the tornado; we’re going to stay strong through this,” Fox said. “Mayflower is a small, tight-knit community and people helping people, and we’ve seen that over and over again. We’ve seen people pull together and help, not just through this, but through the [Exxon] oil spill. It’s been a full effort. Honestly, an event like this has brought a lot of unity in our community that we perhaps lacked before.”
The Rev. Rick Wilkins, pastor of Mayflower First United Methodist Church, said his congregation contributed to the project.
“I thought it was a wonderful idea,” he said. “We’re not only going to put the plaque in the ground and have a prayer Monday morning, but we’re also going to plant a couple of trees. What we’ve been focusing on through the Interfaith Partners Alliance is that we had a significant loss,” he said. “We lost 17 … precious lives,” he said, including a man in Mayflower who was killed during the cleanup. “We’re remembering our loss — lives, property, homes, businesses — but we’re also celebrating our recovery. We have raised almost $1 million, and we dedicated 12 new homes in March, in addition to mobile homes and homes we’ve restored and built.” Seven Habitat for Humanity homes were dedicated in Mayflower and five in Vilonia.
Wilkins said 825 homes and businesses were destroyed in central Arkansas during that stormy day.
Mayflower Mayor Randy Holland said that in the city limits, 54 homes were destroyed, 18 had major damage and 60 had minor damage. Outside the city limits, 71 were destroyed, he said.
Fox said his family took shelter in their laundry room during the storm. He said it was “terrifying,” but their home received only about $5,000 worth of damage.
Raney said her home on the outskirts of town wasn’t damaged, but she helped with relief efforts.
“I was crowned Miss Mayflower the day before, and that hit the next day,” she said. “I remember going out in town and not being able to get to the people to help them; it just broke my heart. I came up here at the school and worked there. Seeing friends and friends’ parents coming in, losing everything, it was just heartbreaking.”
Fellow senior Stephen Fuller rode out the storm in the new home of his aunt, Linda White, in The River Plantation subdivision, where damage was extensive. White’s home, which Fuller’s father built, was destroyed, and his family’s home also received damage, the student said.
“It was just a normal day; it didn’t seem like anything big was going on,” Fuller said. “It had been cloudy all day, and all of a sudden my dad’s friend called and told him a big storm was coming our way. It hadn’t started raining or anything. We went down to our aunt’s house. … They rushed me out, and we ran down there. She has a basement; we thought it would be safer. It’s kind of ironic — her house got completely destroyed, and our house was still standing.
“It got really quiet — they say the silence before the storm. It was the most powerful wind I’ve ever heard or felt — as if a train flew by on the tracks or, actually in this case, hit you head-on. We ran into a crawl space. I tried to shut the door, twice, but the door broke open; it broke off the hinges. I was on top of my sister; my dad was on top of my mom. Bricks and cinder blocks were flying past our heads.”ta
He said a piece of debris scuffed his arm. “I couldn’t even feel it, my adrenaline was so high; it was fight or flight,” he said. “When we were in that space and everything was going over, it made a vacuum effect in the room; we were losing air. I could barely breathe in there.”
When everything was over, the storm had ripped apart the home, he said.
“We were looking directly into the sky,” he said. “We were fine, thank God. We just came out, and we all made our way through. The ceiling had sort of caved in, so we had to step around everything — glass and wood pieces thrown around all over the place.”
Fuller said they then saw the devastation in the neighborhood.
“The first thing I saw was everybody’s houses all crushed up,” he said. “We finally got out to the road, and it was a graphic scene.” He recalled seeing a neighbor’s small black cat, which was hurt and crying.
He said his aunt’s home, furniture and appliances were ruined, but she still had her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. His father plans to rebuild her home in the neighborhood, Fuller said.
Fuller praised the idea of the plaque and remembrance event.
“I think it’s really nice that they’re doing that,” he said. “Our community was really helpful in that event; there were people there in seconds. It wasn’t even the authorities first; it was people we knew in the subdivision just came together.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.