HOLLY — Prowers County Commissioner Gene Millbrand got emotional after an otherwise stoic news conference in which local, county and state officials talked about grants, feasibility studies, tornado sirens and the revitalization of this stricken town.
“I performed both the funerals at my funeral home,” said the mortician and public official, as he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. He stood on a street lined by new houses — exactly one year after a tornado ripped up Highland Drive, along with about half the town.
“It’s been hard on everybody.”
On what is now an empty lot near where Friday’s news conference was held, Delores Burns, 76, died from her injuries after she was pulled from the rubble of her home. Next door, then-Mayor Tom Crum was seriously injured. He sold the wrecked home and moved out of town.
On the south side of town, Rosemary Rosales Puga, 29, died when she, her husband, Gustavo, and 3-year-old daughter Noelia were swept into the branches of a cottonwood tree behind their home.
Gustavo suffered several broken ribs and vertebrae, and Noelia escaped serious injury.
The town of Holly, 4 miles west of the Kansas state line, is marking the first anniversary of the tornado that swept through town, wrecking or demolishing 162 homes, injuring dozens and killing Puga and Burns.
At the hour the tornado struck, 8 p.m., more than 400 residents of this town of 1,100 crowded into the downtown senior center for an observance, though a prominent sign over the door warned “maximum capacity 70.”
“People want to put it behind them,” explained Evelyn Jones, as she stood in the line that snaked down the street outside. “This is something good for the town. Maybe it’s closure.”
Current Mayor Jerry Smith said the turnout “really shows what Holly is all about.”
The Rev. Dave Moorman of Holly United Methodist Church led a prayer and then the Holly Veterans of Foreign Wars post retired the flag that flew over the town the day of the twister.
“Suffering builds endurance,” Moorman said in his prayer. “Endurance builds character. Character builds hope, and hope never fades. And we’ve learned a lot about hope the past year.”
Puga’s family was in the audience.
Burns’ family issued a statement thanking the community for its kindness.
“We know our entire community has suffered and grieved in one way or another. We are extremely proud to call ourselves members of the Holly community, a community that, in the face of huge adversity, has shown so much resilience and, at the same time, so much compassion.
“We know that Mom would have been pleased.”
At supper time, the 14-member sophomore class at Holly High School held a benefit dinner for visiting officials, volunteers and emergency workers who had helped the town. They served barbecue in the school lunchroom, where the Red Cross had served most of the 5,000 meals it provided in the twister’s aftermath.
Jeff Siegfried, the sophomore class treasurer, was playing computer games when the power died last year, he said. The family rushed into their basement, two blocks away from the path of the storm. The family didn’t say a word, just exchanged stunned glances at the hellish noise outside.
During the storm, Siegfried said, he looked out a small window to see lightning crackling in the churning sky on each side with a black monolith moving north.
“I was just glad it didn’t get our house, thankful, I guess you could say,” Siegfried said while pouring glasses of iced tea.
People here disagree about whether the twister has changed things forever, some saying Holly’s prairie mettle is stronger than wind, that the effect was temporary. Others say people have changed as much as the landscape.
“I think people are friendlier,” said Donald Seufer, who runs a cattle operation north of town with his brother, Dale. “People used to just say, ‘Hey,’ and go on. Now people ask how you’re doing, whether you need anything.”
Dale Seufer said residents used to ignore bad weather, even tornado watches.
“Now if a cloud comes up, people start looking for a hole.”
