Ceremony on Saturday to mark 85th anniversary of Knute Rockne plane crash
Eighty-five years ago Thursday, a Transcontinental-Western flight en route from Kansas City to Los Angeles tumbled from the foggy skies over the Flint Hills and slammed into the prairie just outside Bazaar, Kan.
The accident on March 31, 1931, killed Notre Dame football legend Knute Rockne and seven other men.
Saturday, people from across the country – Notre Dame football fans, descendants of those killed in the crash and those Kansans who witnessed it and picked up the pieces – will gather on that spot near Bazaar to offer prayers and stories about the day President Herbert Hoover called “a national loss.”
Beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Bazaar Schoolhouse, guided tours will take people to the site of the wreckage, where a marble and limestone monument stands. The last bus will leave at 10 a.m. The ceremony at the crash site will start at 10:20 a.m.
The pasture at the crash site was burned in a controlled fire Monday, said Sue Ann Brown, who helped organize Saturday’s event and whose father, Easter Heathman, witnessed the crash.
She encourages people to wear old shoes and clothing so they won’t get dirty from the ashes of the recent fire. The site is on privately owned land.
After the ceremony, there will be a program at the Bazaar Schoolhouse that will include a talk about Rockne and a few words about each of the other seven people who were on board the plane when it crashed.
For decades after the plane crash, Heathman – who died in January 2008 at the age of 90 – maintained the Rockne memorial site and welcomed visitors to the area.
Rockne had a fondness for Wichita and Kansas. His good friend and mentor Jess Harper – a former Notre Dame athletic director who hired Rockne – lived in Wichita and ranched in Sitka. Rockne also had taught a coaching clinic at the University of Wichita in 1929.
He was also friends with Forrest “Phog” Allen of the University of Kansas and Kansas State University’s Charles Bachman.
According to witnesses, the plane crashed upside down into the rolling grassland. The tail was sticking almost straight up.
Mail bags were strewn across the prairie, and the right wing was found about three-eighths of a mile from the body of the plane. Most of the victims were thrown from the wreckage, almost in a straight row.
Beccy Tanner: 316-268-6336, @beccytanner
Events on Saturday
The Bazaar Schoolhouse is 6.5 miles south of Cottonwood Falls or approximately 8 miles north of Matfield Green on K-177.
People wanting to attend the memorial service at the plane crash site should plan on arriving between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the Bazaar Schoolhouse. Guided tours will take people to the site of the wreckage, where a marble and limestone monument stands. The last bus will leave at 10 a.m. The ceremony at the crash site will start at 10:20 a.m.
At the plane crash ceremony, there will be the laying of a memorial wreath, a flyover, a moment of silence and the playing of bagpipes.
Visitors on Saturday are also invited to a lunch and program at the schoolhouse following the ceremony. Featured speakers will include Jerry McKenna, renowned sculptor of a Rockne statue; Bernie Gish, who served as director of the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., for years and is now a lecturer in Sport Management at the University of Kansas; Pat Smith, a Notre Dame 1967 class member; and several members of the Heathman family.
During the program, there will be a silent auction that will include three footballs autographed by Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly; two football tickets to two Notre Dame home football games; an Ara Parseghian-autographed Notre Dame football jersey, and a Jerry McKenna statue and a copy of his book “A Third Life.”
After the program, there will be an unveiling of a new Rockne exhibit at the Chase County Historical Museum, 301 Broadway St., Cottonwood Falls.
Although there is no cost for attending the events, lunch is $10. Memorabilia will be for sale, and donations will be accepted.
For more information or to make reservations for Saturday’s lunch, e-mail RockneMemorial@gmail.com or call Pat Reis at 612-636-3905.
For lodging options and area attractions, go to www.chasecountychamber.org.
This story was originally published March 30, 2016 at 7:23 PM with the headline "Ceremony on Saturday to mark 85th anniversary of Knute Rockne plane crash."