Tom Krewson

Jeff Heath was a 19 year old sophomore at Marshall on November 14, 1970. By the end of that night he was the head of his family. His parents, Emmett and Elaine Heath, were among the fans and supporters who traveled with the football team to Greenville, North Carolina that weekend. Marshall lost to East Carolina 17 to 14. Southern Airways Flight 932 came down on a hillside short of the runway at Tri-State Airport, in rain and fog, a few minutes from home. All 75 people on board died. Thirty seven of them were players. Two of them were Dr. Herbert Proctor and his wife Courtney. The Proctors were Jeff's godparents. They were also the couple who had offered to take Jeff and his brother and sisters in if anything ever happened to their parents. Both couples were on the same plane. So that was four children. Jeff was 19. Kathy was 18 with a daughter three weeks old. Holly was 15. Kevin was 11. The grandparents came and tried, and Jeff has said since that they worked out fairly quickly that they were no match for four teenagers. The town did it instead. Tim Perry ran Guaranty National Bank. He took on the estate and then kept turning up, and what Jeff remembers is Perry coming through the door that first December dragging a Christmas tree behind him. Somebody in Marshall's home economics department finished the long overcoat Jeff's mother had been sewing for him. He wore it for years. The man who managed the family's Midas Muffler shop bought the business off them, so a 19 year old would not have to leave school to go run it. Jeff stayed. Degree in 1973, master's in 1975. He married Sally that same year, and she became the one who mothered Holly and Kevin. "We were definitely raised by the City of Huntington." He has been a season ticket holder more or less ever since. This morning Marshall held the 56th Memorial Fountain Ceremony on the Memorial Student Center Plaza, and Jeff Heath gave the address. Jeff Jenkins of MetroNews reported that white roses were set at the base of the fountain and all 75 names were read aloud. Heath told the crowd he could not say strongly enough how the people of Huntington, young and old, came to their aid. They shut the fountain off every November 14. It does not run again until spring. "We were 19, 18, 15 and 11, trying to make our way through life and somehow or other, it worked." Marshall plays Appalachian State tonight at Joan C. Edwards Stadium. They are calling it the 75 game. Fifty six years ago a 19 year old heard it on a news report and drove out to the airport, and then went home and raised his brother and his sisters. This morning he stood in front of that fountain and thanked the town for helping him do it.