Yesterday, during my lunchtime walk at Valhalla, I happened upon this headstone, belonging to Carl Robert Klensch; his place of death caught my eye.
Carl was on of 237 site-seeing passengers who died aboard Air New Zealand Flight 901 when it crashed into Mt. Erebus in Antartica. Twenty crew members also perished.
See the full casualty list here.
Update 1/2/2008: Carl passed away the year I graduated from high school, so it was fittingly ironic that I was able to learn more about him from his own high school alumni website.
Carl was a member of the Class of 1966 at Hawthorne (California) High School who went on to be a fireman for Los Angeles County. He was quite a guy, I've learned. Following is the wonderful and insightful memorial tribute to him, along with his senior portrait, posted on fellow alumn John Baker's website, CougarTown.com:
"Carl Klensch was an LA County Fireman, which he wanted to be since about seven years old. The County had a benefit whereby the guys could swap days with each other. Carl managed to do enough of the swaps that he was able to get five months off with pay.
"He had been to Australia several years before on a three month vacation and in '79 he was going to do both Australia and New Zealand. He had read about a trip with Air New Zealand that was a sightseeing excursion of the South Pole by air. So he signed on and departed out of Christ Church New Zealand.
"He was aboard one of their DC-10s along with 256 other people. They determined later that the navigational computer had erroneous information entered into it and that the aircraft was about 25 miles off course, in whiteout conditions, when it plowed into Mt. Erebus, an active volcano, at about 1200 feet up the slope. There were no survivors.
"He was 31, never married, and going through his papers we found a note that said that if anything ever happened to him we should give his restored '55 Nomad to Woody McCain. Woody is selling real estate in the South Bay, and still has that Nomad.
"In 1972 Carl threw the first Annual Klensch Shoe'N in his backyard. It was just an excuse for a bunch of his buddies and firemen to get together for a day, throw some horseshoes, and party.
"After his death a lot of his buddies from HHS kept up the tradition and it turned into a charity event for severely asthmatic children. The proceeds went towards sending these kids to summer camp.
"I can't remember everyone that was involved but HHS coaches Larry Reed, Noel Smith, and others were deeply involved. Bob Meckley, who went to school with Carl, was heavily involved as well. They kept it going until we had the 25th Annual in 1997."
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