“You taught me how to lose and when to fall and stand back up again to carry on / You taught me to embrace the pain and find the diamond in the rain, to see right from wrong / You taught me how to fight, to love, to reach out for the stars above, arms open wide / But, more than anything, you taught me how to find the strength I have inside.”
These lyrics, which come from a song that didn’t make the final cut for “We Are Marshall,” echoed across the Memorial Student Center plaza as a crowd gathered for the 55th annual Memorial Fountain Ceremony.
The song, entitled “Unforgotten” and co-written by Huntington High School graduate Kara McNealy Zappacosta, reflects on Huntington’s commitment to keeping the memories of the 75 alive. Before today, “Unforgotten” had never been played in public.
On the evening of Nov. 14, 1970, 75 members of the Marshall community, including football players, coaches, physicians and fans, died in the worst airplane accident in NCAA history. Each year on Nov. 14, hundreds meet at the Memorial Fountain to mourn the lives lost in the crash.
Michele Prestera Craig, daughter of respected Huntington businessman Michael Prestera, served as this year’s keynote speaker, sharing memories of her father who, along with the other 74 passengers, did not return home after boarding Southern Airways Flight 932.
“I’m likely, for sure, the most fortunate of all of the children who lost parents that year,” Craig said in her speech. “I was 25 years old, so I’d had the benefit of my fathers for all those years of guidance and love and fun.”
Although she lived in Washington, D.C., at the time of the crash, Craig spent the evening before with her father as he had been in town for business. Despite his insistence for Craig to convince her mother to make the trip to Greenville, North Carolina, with him, Craig shared that her mother decided not to go, ultimately saving her life.
The next night, Craig said she heard word of the plane crash and, knowing her father had been on the plane, desperately tried to find more information on its details. After securing a first edition copy of The Washington Post, her worst fears were confirmed.
“We got this scanty little bit of information, but reading through it, one line read, ‘Among the fans traveling with the team were several prominent physicians: Dr. Joseph Chambers, Dr. Ray Hagley, Dr. Herbert Proctor, Dr. Glenn (Preston) and Dr. Michael Prestera,’” Craig said.
Although Prestera did not obtain his medical degree, Craig said going to medical school had always been his dream – a dream he decided not to fulfill due to a lack of scholarships.
Later in his life, though, he found out he had, actually, received a full scholarship to Louisiana State University at the time he applied, but he had thrown his acceptance letter away without opening it.
“So, my father was finally bestowed that medical degree he never received, if only by a mistaken reporter,” Craig said.
Although Craig’s lost one of the most important people in her own life, she acknowledged the loss extends beyond her father.
“Our collective loss: yours and mine. It has never been just mine, and it’s never been just yours,” she said. “It’s our loss together, and that’s how we’ve become family.”
Although the crash is certainly remembered as a tragedy for all involved, Craig said she believes everything happens for a reason.
To illustrate this sentiment, Craig shared her ideas on the book “A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit as her speech neared its end.
“It argues that major catastrophes, rather than bringing out the worst in people for their own preservation and greed, creates extraordinary communities,” she said, “and I think we have living proof of that here.
“Know that you are in a very special and unique community that has been blessed by a tragedy that has made us something very special,” Craig said.
Baylee Parsons can be contacted at [email protected].
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that cheerleaders died in the plane crash. There was not room for the whole cheerleading squad on the plane, so the cheerleaders did not attend the East Carolina game.
