By Mick Forgey
Reporter



On March 15, 1981, a car driven by Thomas Schmitz was forced off Interstate 480 by a truck, killing four passengers. The men were returning from South Padre Island, Texas, where the above picture was taken. From top left, those in the car were: Edward Reznicek, Phillip Greteman, Thomas Schmitz and William Mork. Daniel Ross is in the top right. Thomas Hoy is pictured second to the left on the bottom. David Hoover took this picture. Ross, Reznicek, Hoover and Greteman were killed in the crash.

Photo courtesy of Mary Anne Hoover

One of the darkest times at Creighton is memorialized on a plaque you probably have never seen.

Hidden in the corner across from the main steps on the second floor of the Skutt Student Center, the plaque describes how two unrelated car accidents swiftly and brutally claimed the lives of six Creighton students.
Freshman Christopher Harries and sophomore Peter Phelan were among a group of students who were struck by a drunken driver’s car as they were leaving a fraternity party south of Lincoln on Saturday, Feb. 6, 1981. Harries and Phelan both died.

Less than five weeks later, on Sunday, March 15, sophomores Philip Greteman, David Hoover, Thomas Hoy, Daniel Ross, Edward Reznicek, William Mork and freshman Thomas Schmitz were driving back to Creighton from vacationing in South Padre Island, Texas, for spring break. A pickup truck forced them car off Interstate 480 near Pacific Street and sent it rolling down the embankment near 40th and Leavenworth streets, minutes from campus.

At the time of the accident, none of the men were wearing seat belts. As the van tumbled along the embankment and landed against a chain-link fence, everyone except Schmitz, who clutched the steering wheel during the fall, was thrown from the vehicle. Hoy, Mork, and Schmitz received slight to serious injuries, but the crash killed Ross, Reznicek, Hoover and Greteman.
The shock of losing two students was overwhelming to the campus, but History professor Dr. Ross Horning said the second crash that took four more lives left students and faculty shattered.

“ We sort of went to all of our classes like zombies. We all knew about what had happened. It was a tough show,” he said.

Horning said the atmosphere was the most devastating he has seen in his decades on campus.

Creighton held two memorial services in St. John’s for the victims of each accident, but the severity and proximity of the crashes left students like 1983 graduate Liz Vogt Zuegner, a friend of Greteman, bewildered.

“ It was so weird. At the memorial service for Pete, Ed Reznicek had to sing a song. At the time I was thinking how nice it was, and six weeks later, we were at a memorial Mass for him,” she said.

People on campus wept openly for weeks, dealing with their grief and the fallen mens’ echoes.

After Greteman died, Zuegner received postcards Greteman sent her from South Padre Island. Developed film with pictures of the deceased compounded the sense of loss, as did doodles and notes the men had scribbled in classmates’ notebooks, just as many Creighton students do when lectures become dull noise.
Attempts to return to normalcy left students feeling guilty and awkward, as Zuegner and her friends felt when they attended a TGIF party, a weekly kegger held in Brandeis Center, a week after the second accident.

“ We didn’t know what else to do. I think we were so tired because we cried all week. We wanted to go on with our college life, and it had been a long week,” she said.

At some point during the party, the students were reprimanded by a woman who told them they should not have been partying under the circumstances.

“ I hated that,” Zuegner said, “because I knew she was right…That was one of those moments where I’d wished I hadn’t gone."

Creighton’s ministry did what they could to console the students through the ordeal. The Rev. Richard Hauser, S.J., professor of theology, was living on the ninth floor of Swanson, the same floor as accident victim Harries.

From the night of the first accident when bloodied survivors of the crash returned to the floor, and continuing several weeks afterward, Hauser spent many late nights consoling traumatized students and helping them spiritually through the faith-testing ordeal.

The Jesuits celebrated Mass on the floors of the dormitories as well as special services in St. John’s. The closeness of the accidents intensified the trauma, but Hauser said it also increased Creighton’s community and unity with one another.

“ We needed each other to get through this. It increased our openness to God because we needed God’s help and strength to get through it. We were grieving and working our way through this problem with our faith,” he said.

Hauser recalls one example of this unity. At the funeral for Phelan, student Jerry Mancuso went up to Phelan’s mother and explained to her how he tried to revive Phelan after he had been struck and thrown by the car.

As Phelan was dying, Mancuso took off his scapular medal and put it around Phelan’s neck. According to Catholicism, a person who dies wearing the scapular medal is said to have God’s presence and necessary assistance.

When Mrs. Phelan heard this, she replied to Mancuso, “you beautiful, beautiful boy. You were at my son’s side, praying for him while he was dying.” Mrs. Phelan still wears the scapular medal her son wore when he died, with Mancuso, now a heart surgeon in Kansas City, praying by his side, Hauser said.

“ I’ve never seen our student community so close as during those times, supporting one another,” Hauser said.

Hauser himself was deeply affected and inspired by the questions about God’s plan and presence. Ten years after the accident, Hauser wrote a book about reconciling an all-loving God with the pain and suffering of the world, entitled “Finding God in Troubled Times.”

Horning and former head of Campus Ministry, the Rev. John Lynch, S.J., also responded to the tragedy many years later.

Horning noticed that an outside stone memorial marker with engravings of the victims’ names, located on California Street, was beginning to fade. Horning and Lynch decided to erect a new plaque and to keep it indoors. Surviving family members were invited to a luncheon in the Skutt Student Center. The ballroom where the ceremony was held was filled to capacity, with 300-350 people.

Following the plaque’s blessing by Hauser, Horning delivered an impromptu speech about the deaths of the men. Horning, who did not know about the speech he was scheduled to deliver until less than a day before the event, has no idea to this day what he said exactly to the audience of mothers, fathers and siblings whose families had been broken so many years ago.

All he knows is that when he was finished speaking, he received a spontaneous and enthusiastic standing ovation. Horning said he thinks it must have been sufficient, especially when Mrs. Phelan came up to him and said, “Can a grateful mother give you a hug?”

Mary Anne Hoover, David’s mother and 1960 Creighton graduate, cannot remember the specifics of Horning’s speech either, but she remembers “it was truly wonderful.” She was touched by the people who were there, as well as by the plaque itself.

“ We’re very glad it’s still there after all these years. It means a lot to us,” she said.
The Hoover family incorporates the plaque into a yearly family tradition at Creighton. The Hoovers attend the Alumni Mass at St. John’s and then go to the student center for coffee and rolls with everyone. There, they see David’s plaque.

“ It’s very touching, and we show our grandchildren the plaque,” Hoover said. “They know all about Dave. It is a very special remembrance of him and of all the boys, and we appreciate that.”

Hoover was grateful for Creighton’s response to the tragedy.

“ I couldn’t have asked for more. They were right there, from the beginning,” she said.

Hoover said many Creighton priests called and came by the home, both during the tragedy and afterward.
“ They were our friends and they still continue to be.
They acted just like it was their own son or brother.”

Today the plaque that lists the men’s names, hometowns, and the fates they met in February and March is nestled in a corner wall on the second floor of the student center. It is a testament to the men as well as to one of Creighton’s most harrowing yet empowering times. Do students today acknowledge the plaque? Most of them probably miss it. But Horning said the plaque is very important and has a great deal of relevance to today’s student body.

“ I hope they can reflect on what a tragedy did take place here,” Horning said, “and realize how important every student is in the Creighton University community.”

For more images of the men involved in this tragic time, please refer to our Online Extras.