[Interviewer] I guess it kind of seems silly for me to ask what it was like.

I know it was probably very, very difficult, but would you be willing to talk about the day of the crash?

I would be glad to talk about the day of the crash.

What do you wanna know?

[Jean] You know how you always say, "Well when's the last time you see them?"

Well, that morning he said, "See ya!"

and I said, "Well when will that be?"

and he said, "Later."

and it was just a typical day.

He was out driving with the kids, and I was in my classroom at the end of the day.

And Mr. Van Dyk came and he said, "I just heard" "that the driver's ed car has been in an accident," "and the driver's ed car is in one ditch," "and it was a" "semi that's in the other ditch."

And I said, "Oh, that's good!

They're both on the opposite sides they, you know" "they probably are ok." He said, "We don't know anything yet.

We haven't heard anything," "Um, but we'll let you know."

So the driver's ed car was a... going out for their afternoon drive.

Ahh, Mr. Selles.

Umm, Eric Eekhoff.

Matthew Lucht, and Alex Van Egmond.

Were driving, and they were coming back from Bozeman and lost control, and then they veered in front of a food service truck.

We'd had a storm earlier, that had put down a couple inches of really slushy snow.

The car, it appeared like, it had slid sideways and the truck kind of T-boned the car, and then the car went off into the ditch.

[Interviewer] Do you remember where you were when you heard the news about the accident?

[Mark Eekhoff] It was after school.

I was playing a video game, and thats when I heard from my parents.

Umm, they came home, and then they told me.

[Rob] The day of the accident you know I saw all three of them at school.

[Liz] I was actually about a mile from where it happened.

[Mark Kimm] That day I was trucking grain.

We were hauling some of our grain to Townsend.

[Kim] We were actually after school in practice, and we knew something was going on.

[Liz] I was helping my sister-in-law, and brother-in-law.

She got a phone call said there had been a car accident, and it involved some Manhattan Christian kids, and that's all whoever called her knew.

I actually tried pretty hard talking Alex out of skipping driver's ed that day to come golfing with me.

[Mark Kimm] Umm, my brother and the head basketball coach came and told me that there was a really bad accident, and that in a half hour my practice started and my team was gonna be up there, and three kids are gonna be missing.

[Kim] The principal at that time he, he informed me that there was an accident.

He didn't have any details.

So I immediately called the school, and the principal answered.

And, umm.

I could tell it was very serious.

He was very emotional, and then he said, "If you could come to school right now that'd be very good."

[Kim] We were kinda waiting for some news, and we kinda got it over a period of about half an hour till finally we knew it was a something very serious.

So.

I right away said, "Are they okay?"

and they wouldn't answer me.

Because they couldn't.

Umm, because the parents had not be notified.

[Rob] I was actually on my way home on Churchill or on Amsterdam Road, and a one of the firefighters told me that I gotta get home right away.

So I went home, and my parents told me kinda like right as I walked in the door what actually the accident was.

[Mark Eekhoff] It was actually my day to to drive drivers ed that day.

Umm, so.

That's always something that continues to be in my mind is you know if things had been the other way what would have happened.

Umm, what would have been different.

You know?

I didn't go to the accident site.

Umm, I don't think my parents wanted me to go there, I don't think they wanted me to see that, and also I don't think I really wanted to either.

Umm, I got a phone call from Randy at that point to.

From Mr. Van Dyk.

My, my first task was to go and gather the families, and ask them to come into the conference room.

[Jean] They said, "No you can't go to the accident site" "they're calling all the families together at school."

[Randy] So we all kind of gathered into that room and we were just kinda waiting.

[Jean] And the Eekhoff's came in and they said, "We've been at the site."

"There are no survivors."

And it's like no that can't be.

There were four in that car somebody has to still be alive.

And so.

My heart just left it.

It's, it’s just the way it is.

I won't believe it till I hear it from someone who's official.

[Randy] One of my most vivid memories is little Michael Lucht who, I don't even know if he was in school yet, going up to his dad and saying you know "I wanna see I want, I want Matthew to come home" and then Greg said, "He can't come home."

And Michael just crumbling onto his dad's lap.

And then the coroner came in and the chaplain, and they did say, "It is true."

"There are no survivors."

And then my heart sank.

It was like, "It is true.

It really is true."

[Brett] I hadn't heard anything about this and I get to practice that night.

As soon as I walked in I, I don't know.

I knew something, something was up.

I don't remember who told me what had happened, but it was just surreal.

It was.

[Rob] Lot of emotion for sure.

I mean just didn't know how to respond.

I mean, I broke down in tears pretty much right away.

I couldn't really find the tears.

I was still in shock.

I don't think the reality had set in in my mind, or I don't think my mind had the capacity to understand.

I would say the full gravity of everything didn't hit me for a couple of weeks probably.

[Mark Kimm] Finally they did tell me that they were all killed, and that.

They're gonna be informing parents, and they're getting counselors, and, and, this whirlwind went through my mind of what are we gonna say to the kids?

What are we gonna say?

My teams up there, and...

It was probably one of the most difficult days of my life.

Well it was, it was devastating and a.

The older brother of one of the boys was in the practice and so.

I...I don't know.

It was, it was just such a shock.

I think we were, we were all just numb.

[Mark Kimm] When they gave me the go ahead that I could, could go tell the kids.

We walked in the gym, and I remember a couple of the kids just say things like, "Ooo, they're gonna be in big trouble cause they're late."

Just that, starting out just broke my heart.

Then we sat them down and told them that their buddies had been in a bad accident and were killed, and they reacted in complete emotional breakdown.

I mean their best friends were gone.

[Mark Eekhoff] I recall thinking this is probably the first time I've ever slept in a room without him.

Which is.

Umm... A really a... strange sensation.

Umm, for the first time.

I don't know.

I sat there for half the night with all, all the other guys that were, that were supposed to be practicing that night, and just let out, let out a lot of tears at that time.

This was happening to all of us.

It was.

Not something that I had to deal with by myself, or just my family.

We were all there and we could look at each other, and we knew we were interconnected at that time.

And even as the months went by there was always somebody there.

God provided so many people that came in.

So, it was all Gods story.

He was working through that.

To make it, so that we could step into that story as well.

[Interviewer] Could you describe maybe what a... Matthew, Eric, and Alex were like?

What kind of a an impression did they leave on you?

[Mark Kimm] I don't know of any boys who aren't competitive.

For the most part they like to win, and these guys were like that way.

All three of them.

They wanted to win, but there was something they just, they had a big heart.

All of them did.

In my opinion.

For each other.

[Interviewer] Do you have a favorite memory of them?

[Mark Kimm] Boy, umm.

One of the I think the last game that Matthew played.

We were going to the game and, Matthew asked me if he could do devotions and I usually prepared them, and I said no that's fine you may do devotions, and he gave a devotional on living as if its one of your last days.

And that really impacted me later knowing what happened, but that game also.

He just did awesome in that game, and really hit a new high and a new level for himself, and it was the last game that he played and, that was a really good memory for me of him.

Ahh, well Mathew was one of the most genuinely kind people that i've ever met.

No matter how you were to him he was just always genuinely kind back to you.

Ahh, he always had a joke or just off the wall jokes, and he was always messing around it seemed like.

He didn't take life too seriously I guess I'd say, and he was really smart to.

I remember that.

He was very smart.

[Kim Vander Ark] Oh, he was a pretty eager kid.

I think of all the kids in that class he was the probably most skilled at math.

Really bright kid.

Matthew was pretty smart.

He had a really, really strong drive to, to do better in everything.

Matthew was one of the few that a, that took school very seriously.

[Kim] I was one of the football coaches, and he was a, a young player there.

You know if he was on the sidelines, or your gonna put him in the game or something like that he says, "Ready to go coach!"

he'd always say that so he was, he was a very eager.

[Mark Eekhoff] You know a lot of my memories with Matthew are we used to go to each others houses.

and hang out.

We watched movies a lot.

[Chuckles] The one movie.

It's ridiculous, but for some reason all the guys in our class really loved Undercover Brother.

So for some reason I've got this weird association in my mind of Matthew with that movie.

[Brett] I remember him talking about his.. the pickup he was gonna get when he got his license.

I think he was gonna call it black beauty or something.

He always thought his jokes were just hilarious, and he always die just from laughing just from his own jokes.

Yeah, he was, he was, he was well liked by, by everyone, and I don't, I don't know if anyone would have had a bad thing to say about him.

[Mark Kim] He was kind of like the father the team.

The caring person of the team.

He, he looked out for somebody else besides himself first you know.

And Eric Eekhoff was...

He was just an extremely hard worker who just got things done.

He's just a very good kid.

I, I know that a my son was, was very close to Eric and then also his twin brother Mark.

It, it was interesting cause Mark and Eric were twins obviously, and Mark was always a bit quieter than Eric.

Eric was very, very outgoing.

You need anything he would be there.

Just A nice, good, kind kid.

[Mark Eekhoff] Ahh, Eric and I spent essentially every waking moment of our lives together.

Obviously we were identical twins.

I can't really remember any times, or any nights that we didn't spend together.

Eric himself spent a lot of time making friends, and was very good at making friends.

I was definitely growing up the introvert of the two of us.

Eric was much more extroverted.

Eric was, I would say, very athletically talented.

Like basketball.

He was on the basketball team.

In track and field he would do the sprints, cause he was a fast runner, and then I ended up doing long distance.

He was also a bright kid.

Also smart.

I imagine of the two of us he would have been the one with the doctorate, and I would have been the one who was happy with a bachelors.

One other thing about Eric is that he, he loved animals.

He was extremely interested in the animal kingdom.

He always had some sort of reptile.

I was always afraid of that.

I hated them, but Eric always had so much joy in taking care of those lizards and getting to know them more and understanding them better.

I would say, that would typify a lot of what his personality was like, was he was a very caring person.

I remember with Eric our ability to, to communicate was unbelievable.

Like, our ability to understand what each other was thinking.

I can't tell you how many times Eric and I would answer for each other.

I can't tell you how many times like somebody would ask Eric a question and I'm there and I would be like, "He wants It this way."

That kind of stuff man I loved that.

I don't think any two people can understand each other as well as we understood each other.

I've seen twins that don't get along very well, brothers that don't get along very well, but Eric and I we definitely got along really well.

[Rob] I grew up right around the corner from the Eekhoffs so I spent a lot of time with both Mark and Eric growing up.

We always where riding bikes around Churchill, and building forts, and, and then Alex was one of my best friends growing up so we spent a ton of time together.

Pulling, yeah sleds behind the four- wheeler.

Yeah, kinda just your basic kids growing up on farms type of thing.

In my opinion, personality wise, he was kind of the goof, goofy kid on the team.

He got all the guys laughing all the time, and was kind of the life of the party on the team you could say.

[Rob] Alex was super outgoing.

I don't think there was anybody that did not get along with him.

I've, I've mentioned he was one of my best friends growing up, but I bet there's twenty other guys that would say the same thing.

[Mark Eekhoff] Some of my favorite memorie with Alex are just memories camping in his back yard.

We spent a lot of time you know messing around on his farm.

We built a raft one time out of just iodine barrels from the milk barn and a sheet of plywood, and we used to raft that thing down the canal.

Alex was always up for an adventure like that.

He was an extremely fun kid, and really hard to get down.

He was eternally optimistic I would say.

He was maybe a little bit more of a trouble maker than a couple of the other guys.

One summer we were at his house, his parents gave us a bunch of firecrackers to keep ourselves entertained but, we got sick of that we just started lighting small fires and putting them out.

Eventually, we got one that got a little too big for us, so Alex just bolts, Runs away, I go running in the house find his older brother Clint, he comes out starts putting it out, his dad comes running in out of the barn to help put, put it out, and for about the next hour, we were stuck looking for Alex.

We, we did finally find him.

He was hiding under the neighbors porch.

[Laughs] I remember that when they were younger Grant and a Alex they shot out all the umm all the glass windows on the sheds on the farm place we were on with their BB guns, and when I finally confronted them about it Alex said, "Well it was okay cause they were all old anyway, you know so?"

[Mark Eekhoff] He's, he was a big golfer.

Alex loved to golf and he was really good, and a he got a hole in one one time and I still remember the time he told me about getting a hole in one on hole number five on the par 3 course at Cottonwood Hills.

The biggest smile you've ever seen when Alex got his first hole in one, yeah.

[Jean Selles] Mr. Selles was...

He was a pretty good storyteller.

He liked to have fun.

So, he liked basketball and sports and all those kids of things, but he also liked going fishing and collecting baseball cards.

He had stamp collections, and the best part was he had a twin brother who also collected.

It became a family kind of event.

He loved being a teacher.

That was who he was.

He said, "I wasn't all that good of a student.

So I understand" "the student who doesn't get it."

"There has to be another way to explain it to them," "and If it takes ten times to do it or, a hundred I'm willing to take that time."

He coached cross country.

Track.

He had run cross country in high school.

Came in last most times.

So he said, "I know what its like."

"Winning wasn't everything.

It wasn't where you came in it was" "did you run better than you thought you could?"

"Was it your personal best?"

He was a good Dad.

He liked to do things with them.

So, teaching them to problem solve so that they could be involved as well.

That was important for him.

And he loved to garage sale.

He'd go with the girls, and go garage saleing to see if they could find any "Good buys."

I think I loved that he loved God the most.

He always said, "When you write my obituary."

"You don't have to say all the things I did."

"God was first in my life."

"Church and family were in there as well," "and that's what I lived for."

[Randy Van Dyk] Any time there are events that are so large, that they make conflicts just seem so small works to strengthen a community, and that's one of those events.

Ah, there's a verse in Ephesians six that talks about knowing how wide, and long, and high, and deep is the love of God.

And during that time we saw that.

I guess my final words were I still pray for those families every week.

The power of prayer is healing in itself for us, but God also uses those prayers to carry out his will.

And, and yeah.

I, I still remember that accident.

I still pray for those people.

Every week.

The details of the crash are probably not, not that important and the details, in my mind, have somewhat disappeared.

I think its how a community copes and reacts with that, and I think that in the end it was...it built a stronger community.

Ahh, I think time sometimes heals some things...umm, but you know in this case every time January, 23 happens to show up on the calendar.

All those memories come back just vivid again of where you were, and what happened, and how you handled it.

Any memorial money that anybody wanted to donate those families collected that money, and gave it back to the school so that we could build a brand new gym.

And that's why its called the memorial event center.

There's a little plaque out front that explains why its called that.

With the names of Mr. Selles and the three boys on it as well.

That's kind of I think how how we sort of all managed to heal.

Yeah, I just don't.

I just don't want us to ever forget the people that they were.

Having had the privilege of knowing them they left a mark and an impact on me.

I just don't want people to forget how close and important their, their friends are, and that we don't always know if we'll be here tomorrow of if a, if some of them will be here tomorrow.

So, umm.

I think to realize how important these relationships are now.

That's what I don't want people to forget.

Any time you go through a life changing event, I don't care what it is, it changes the way you think, It changes the way you act.

We aren't guaranteed another day on this earth we, we don't know, and when your younger than those kids you don't, you don't think like that.

The reality is that it made me aware that it's important how you treat each other, It's important who you live for, and I'm referring to my faith with Christ.

It's important because I have, I have hope that I I'll see them again.

You know I mean for a long time all the guys on like the C team got together for breakfast once a year.

You know I'm in touch with probably the Van Egmonds more so than anybody, but I'd say there's still some healing process My oldest son his middle name is after Alex.

It's Reno Alexander.

You know, I still think about him all the time.

Eventually, like I said you kinda do get on to life as normal.

I'd just say trying to you know continue on their kindness to other people.

Or I mean they were just like genuinely wanted to get to know you.

They wanted to be your friend.

I mean, I feel like I've.

I guess I've personally, I feel like I've.

I wouldn't say gotten over it, but I understand that some things happen.

God has a plan in, in our lives, and as a class we really became pretty close after that.

I mean you experience something like that, and you have a bond for life.

When you go through something like that.

[Mark Eekhoff] Umm, I struggled for a long time with guilt, you know.

What if I hadn't asked Eric to choose, or Eric to switch that day with me.

I can still think of times even when I'm driving my truck out in the country when I think, Man there's a chance Eric could be riding with me.

You know, that I could be making this memory with somebody else.

Those are, those are tough and they remain tough.

They still bring up real feeling of sadness.

I guess, pretty profound sadness.

Just the fact that man.

Like, I was born with like a built in best friend, and that guy's just not on earth anymore.

But I think about it in the reverse a lot, I think a lot about like okay what if I had been the one in the car?

You know, what if I would have passed away?

How would I want my brothers, how would I want my parents, how would I want my community to react?

I think it does more honor to these guys to be able to turn around and try, and I guess try and rise out of the, the mess.

There's a lot of people who would give up on a lot of stuff.

I'm thankful that a... That I haven't.

I'm thankful that in a lot of ways its caused me to have to really kinda think introspectively about the kind of guy I wanna be, and it's caused me to make a lot of changes for the better.

Some of the ways that I remember are looking back at the pictures, looking back at even some of the things that he made.

You know the little projects he had done and given to me as gifts.

Knowing that there was love there, knowing that, that we had something special as a family, and umm.

Just remembering in my mind you know who he was and who he cared for.

When our kids get together we talk about those things because each of the children respond to him differently as well, and so hearing their stories and their perspective helps me to know that its still there.

Those memories are still there, and we can keep going.

Cause he would never want us to say, "Give up."

It's perseverance.

We can get through this, we can do this, And so I would think that Mr. Selles would want everyone to know how important they are.

That each person is unique, each person is different, but we all have strengths that we can claim as our own.

It's all about what can I do with this that will make Gods world a better place, and go from there.

Be who you are, but go with God.

My name is Brian Eekhoff.

I'm the brother of Eric Eekhoff.

Umm, and ah, I don't know if this is true for a Mr. Selles.

Ahh, I don't know if he did it this year, but I remember that Mr. Selles he'd always, he'd always say, "Umm, "who's, who’s turn is it to bring us home after drivers ed?” I had the privilege of going to drivers ed with him and he'd always ask who's turn is it to bring us home, and this time it was God's turn.