Published: June 25, 2006 03:39 am      

‘In Memory of Erin’

Hundreds gather to honor hit-and-run victim

FAIRMONT — The sun emerged after an overcast day just long enough to shine as 250 friends and family gathered Saturday evening to remember Erin Keener, “a cute little tomboy from Rivesville” who had a beautiful smile, big brown eyes and even a bigger heart.

“Erin Marie Keener was an awesome combination of beauty and fun and scrap and compassion,” said her father’s cousin, Debbie Keener Stevenski, during a two-hour-plus vigil at Palatine Park, just over the hill from where the 21-year-old West Virginia University nursing student was critically injured on a November night last fall outside of Vincent’s, a Merchant Street bar, by a hit-and-run driver.

The event served as a way for the community to honor Erin during the month she would have turned 22, raise money for a nursing scholarship in her name, and keep her case alive in the public consciousness.

Erin’s mother, Debbie Keener, appealed for anyone who knows details about the night her daughter was hit to come forward. Erin Keener died three days later on Nov. 23.

“I am overwhelmed with sadness to think someone could live with themselves causing such a tragedy, taking our daughter’s life. We miss her so very much,” Keener said. “This person goes on about their life like nothing ever happened. Well, something did happen, and I am pleading from the bottom of my heart to please tell someone that you know what happened and take responsibility for it. I beg of you to turn yourself in.

“If you are someone who knows what happened and are not directly involved, I hope you would do the right thing for Erin and call the police and tell them what you know.”

That would be the kind of break police have been seeking. Steve Cain, chief of the Fairmont Police Department, said Saturday night that he remains confident that the driver will be found.

“Something’s out there,” he said. “Something’s going to happen. There are people out there who know what happened to that poor girl who are not coming forward yet, for whatever reason, we don’t know.”

Cain acknowledged rumors that have swirled around the region regarding who might be responsible. “If that was provable, we would have made an arrest,” he said.

Debbie Keener said it was no accident that the vigil was taking place so close to the area where Erin was critically injured. She had gone to Vincent’s with friends Nov. 20, and was temporarily separated from them when a commotion outside led them outside to Erin, who had been hit by a car.

Those speaking at the vigil did not concentrate on those details, but instead remembered Keener, a fourth-year nursing student, as a kind and loving young woman who tried to protect all creatures, including ants.

“I was told that she once saved a slug,” her mother told the audience.

Stephanie Koay knew Erin through her cousin, Jennifer Koay.

“She was the kind of person that you would look at her, and she has the kindest heart, the biggest smile,” Stephanie Koay said as the vigil was getting under way.

Jennifer Koay was one of four of Erin’s friends who gave personal accounts of the time they spent together at WVU, living together first in a dorm in a “never-ending sleepover” and then on a house on Richwood Avenue where they would sit on the porch and talk about the future with the woman they call “Keener.”

“We were all together, so it was home,” Koay said. “It was on that porch that we talked about the future. We talked about school, and work, and boys and our dreams, what we wanted our weddings to be like, what we would name our kids, where we would live, what kind of cars we would drive, and everything else we had to look forward to.”

On the rare occasions that the friends stayed inside, they sometimes watched “Will & Grace” and “ER,” and heard medical explanations about the latter from the nurse-to-be, Koay noted. Erin, many of her friends and family noted, looked forward to nursing, a career that seemed very well suited for the young woman who always wanted to adopt the dog from the shelter that was about to be euthanized next.

“It always seemed like Keener had it all figured out, more than the rest of us. She was absolutely positive that she wanted to be a nurse, and she wanted to work with kids,” Koay said. “Anyone who spent 20 minutes with Keener knew that this was a perfect fit. She was caring and compassionate, with the innocence of a child.”

Erin’s mother sat near the stage and smiled as Koay, along with Jaime Bolyard, Crissy Bombard and Meredith Cavalier, recounted their memories of her daughter.

“It’s nice when everybody else thinks the same way I do,” Debbie Keener said shortly afterward.

Earlier, Keener told the audience that $8,325 already has been raised through the sale of blue bracelets that read “In Memory of Erin Keener.” The family wants to raise $15,000 to fund the scholarship that will pay for a semester of college for a fourth-year nursing student.

After songs, prayers, personal accounts and even a magic act, the vigil culminated in a rendition of “Amazing Grace” sung around the fountain at Palatine Park, as the sun begin to fade back into the haze for the night. Keener also noted that the rain stopped long enough on Erin’s birthday, June 4, to allow friends and family to release balloons in her honor at a previously designated time.

One of Erin’s friends noted that she called her mother every day, a fact on which Debbie Keener reflected as the vigil came to an end and a rendition of Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” coincidentally began wafting down to the river from a band playing on the deck of the River City Grille up on Merchant Street.

“That’s the one thing I miss the most,” Keener said. “That and her smile and laughter. It was contagious.”

E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.