January 25, 2007 11:42 AM

Kevin Vaughan on The Crossing, Chapter 3

mf(Q) Kevin, with your story, you have revealed some of the survivors who I came to know later in high school that I didn't know were involved with this tragedy
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I know a lot of these people simply didn't go around telling everyone about this, so that doesn't really surprise me.

Mark_Wolf(Q) Reading the comments on the RockyTalk Live blog item on The Crossing I'm struck by how many people who had some personal connection to the accident have responded. What has your e-mail been like?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) Very similar. Everyone who was alive at the time this happened was deeply affected by this, and I know everyone who knew these children and families were as well.

Mark_Wolf(Q) I grew up in a very small town (population 500) and rode a bus to school my sophomore and junior years. We crossed four sets of railroad crossings each way every day. And there were railroad tracks within 100 yards in two directions from my house. When I was a teenager there was a fatal train/car crash on one of those tracks. Did your reporting take you into the issue of rural/small town train crossing safety?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) Yes and no. In the Auburn community, which you'll read more about tomorrow, trains were a daily part of life. That was common in that time and still is in many rural communities.

Mark_Wolf(Q) From Ken via the internet: Thirty three chapters is not too many; the value of the story isn't only in the simple reporting of the facts on that accident day; people who find this too painful don't need to read it, and for many of us who are personally connected to The Crossing, this is important work and soothing. Thank you. If I live 45 more years to read a similar treatment of the Iraq war on a small community, I will find value in that as well.
Kevin_Vaughan(A) Thank you for the kind note. I know that it is painful for some people to see this in print, and I feel badly about that. I hope that in the end people will see tremendous value in the series. Time will tell if my instincts are right on that.

Mark_Wolf(Q) Via e-mail from Rita: I can hardly wait for the nexst day's paper...am enjoying the story immensely! I love history and wish the story was all out in one big paper so I cold read it all the way through in one sitting. Alas, I will wait. I could see this as a book and I am imagining the ramifications that came after the wreck. My dad was a railroader and when I was younger and we had tracks that had no lights (as many were in the old days). I would have paid far less attention to looing for trains had my father not talked so much to us about train wrecks. They can seem so beningn and trains came so seldom (or so it seemed to children). Just wanted to know how much I'm enjoying your story.
Kevin_Vaughan(A) One of the things we're trying to do is figure out the best ways to get stories to people. This was our attempt to see if people were interested in a serial that required a little time each day versus a big story that would require hours to digest.

mf(Q) How many of the survivors remain in CO and are many in the Greeley area?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) More than half of the survivors are in Colorado, in and around Greeley and Fort Collins in many cases. Others are in California, Washington, Wisconsin and Arizona.
Jen(Q) Hi Kevin. Why is the series 33 days long? Was it an issue of space, how much you wanted to present each day, or any other factors?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) The biggest factor was that reading habits are changing. People often don't have time today to sit down and read for several hours. Our feeling was that if this was presented in one big story, in a special section, most people would not look at it because the idea of reading it was too daunting. We are trying a different approach. We started out not knowing how many chapters it would be, but I hope in the coming weeks you will see these families and the survivors have many amazing stories.

Jen(Q) Kevin, I first came across this series while catching up with news at the Greeley Tribune's website. How did you start writing about this? And what was your cooperation with the Greeley Tribune like?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I have wondered the same things in my mind for years. How do families and communities cope with tragedy over a long period of time? How do individuals deal with it? How does it shape people over a lifetime? I think spending so much time covering Columbine -- from the first hours of April 20, 1999 -- really got me thinking that this was a story that should be told and could help bring meaning and understanding to a tremendous tragedy. The Greeley Tribune gave us access to its photo files, and we reciprocated by allowing it to publish our series.

mf(Q) You mentioned that you've done stories on other railroad crossing tragedies. I believe that one of your objectives with this story is to reveal how the lives of the families and survivors changed. Was there anything different with the people in this story versus the other tragedies that you've covered?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) In all the other tragdies, I was dealing with those left behind weeks or at most months after their loss. I have never before asked people to put something in perspective that happened so long ago, so they were very different. In addition, in 1961, there was very little understanding of grief, no counselors for the families and children, no public grieving like we see today. President Kennedy did not make a public statement about this accident. I can't imagine it happening today without the president noting it and offering condolences. It was a different time.

ritag(Q) What about parents.... were you able to talk to any, if they are still alive and how did they react to the idea of a story?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I talked to all but a few of the surviving parents. The reaction was mixed. Some wholeheartedly supported the idea of the story immediately and talked freely. I think for some it was a way to remember their children. One mother in particular talked extensively about never letting herself cry back then, and wishing she'd grieved differently. Other parents were tentative about talking to me but ultimately became supportive. A few were not thrilled with the idea at all but still spoke with me. And a few declined to be interviewed. I respect all of their decisions. I hope, in the end, they will all feel that their children were honored and remembered and that there was value in doing it even though it was hard to revisit the most awful moments of their lives.

Jen(Q) I grew up in Greeley, and my father and his parents came to Greeley shortly after the accident. It is a story that reaches schoolchildren all over Weld County. When did you first hear about the accident? What were your feelings when you first learned about it? As a journalism student, I have learned that such a perspective has changed my first reaction to many events. Were you involved in journalism when you first learned about this accident, and if not, did becoming involved in journalism change how you viewed the accident?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I first learned about this accident in the mid-1980s when I was a journalism student at Metropolitan State College. I was looking through old microfilm, looking for something else, and came across stories about the accident. I immediately thought, My God, how did all of these families and all of these children get through this? How did the community go on? One way that my perspective has changed since then is that I've realized that every person reacts to things differently. When I embarked on this project, I feared that many of these people would have the same experience over these past 45 years. It turned out that none of them did.

Susanne(Q) I was 11 years old and I still remember how this horrific accident impacted virtually, the entire state. I think the morbidity of a school bus being ripped apart like this made this seem almost unbeleiveable for the most part. I still remember pictures of children's shoes, papers, books, etc.
Kevin_Vaughan(A) You are not alone. Many, many people I have encountered have similar memories. I rode a school bus growing up. My daughter rides a school bus now that crosses railroad tracks every day. I think that makes it more real to many of us.

mf(Q) Who drew the map of the bus route and is there a better image available?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) The map was located among the files of an attorney who represented the bus driver. Unfortunately, it was the only copy available, and we did the best we could in presenting it.

Jen(Q) Previous attempts at interviewing Mr. Harms were declined, such as when Mike Peters of the Greeley Tribune tried to talk to him last year. Were you able to contact Mr. Harms?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) That's a very good question. Here's how I'll answer that: By the end of the story, you will know about Duane Harms' life after he left Greeley. I apologize for being so cryptic, but that's the best I can do right now.

mf(Q) How was Duane's recollection?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) Good question. I'm going to defer answering for now. Sorry.

Susanne(Q) Every time I see the reflective areas on a school bus, I remember what it took to have this material added to buses everywhere. Is there a place on-line I can access the pictures you have in the actual paper?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) Yes -- www.rockymountainnews.com has the photographs that appear in the paper and many more as well.

mf(Q) I've also read the info about the sources and in some ways it's surprising that some of the important documents are missing...were you given any explanation for their disappearance? Do you think it has created some gaps in the accuracy of the story? Also, for the survivors, were any of them suffering long-term lapses in memory of that day?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) It was not surprising but it was disappointing that so many of the official documents were gone. We worked around that though, by comparing accounts of the same events in different newspapers and by comparing those accounts to information we were given in interviews. I think there are places in this series where there is information missing, becuase we simply couldn't verify it, but everything you read was confirmed through multiple sources. And yes, some of the survivors remember, for example, stopping at the railroad tracks and then waking up in the hospital days later -- but nothing in between.

Jen(Q) What kind of reaction thus far have you gotten from the community, aside from those already involved in the project (survivors, parents of children)? Do you think their reactions will change by the time the series is finished?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. One of the many reasons I thought this story was important was that so many people who live here knew nothing about it. I wanted them to know about these children. Many people have written and expressed surprised that they'd been here 30 or 40 years and knew nothing about it. I hope by the time the series changes people who are bothered by it now will feel differently.

Jen(Q) How long did it take to work on this, from beginning this project to the first day of the series?
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I did a little work here and there over several years -- looking up an old article, or spending some time trying to track someone down. We began work in earnest last May, and I moved full-time to this late in the summer. I also began writing at that time.

deanamo(Q) I still am shaken as a reader, to review this incident - and to see the pictures of the children and the destoyed bus. Anyone must realize that in our world, these things are happening, somewhere every day; that is, the loss of children from their parents in many many differt scenarios. It makes us treasure our children and grandchildren each day that we have them. Your article emphasizes this and makes us all so aware of the love we should show to our families.
Kevin_Vaughan(A) I'm glad to hear that. I hope that people will appreciate life a little more as a result of this. It can be taken away in a snap, and it can't be gotten back.

Mark Wolf(P) Thanks for participating and for the excellent questions. Kevin will be online once again tomorrow at 11 a.m. Hope you can join us then.