Tom McKeever was killed in a highway accident on Wednesday, August 8, 2007, near Paxton, Nebraska, which is about 20 miles east of Ogallala, not far across the Colorado-Nebraska state-line. He was eastbound on Interstate 80, driving his family’s goods in a rental truck as his wife Pam followed in their car. Their young daughters Mackenzie and Dakota were staying with relatives during the move from Denver to Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Pam saw the truck’s left-turn signal go on, but instead of simply passing the car ahead of him, Tom’s truck veered left and crossed into on-coming traffic where it met a semi head-on. Fiery explosion, highway closed for seven hours. Three fatalities: Tom, and the two young men in the semi, Harold Lee, age 24, and Steven Betters, age 28, both from Tennessee. The cause of the crash — why Tom’s truck went left — is unknown. Heart attack? Aneurysm? Faulty vehicle? The accident happened in the early evening, about 6:15 PM, and the sun was behind him; neither drugs nor alcohol are suspected. The coroner found no evidence of a medical condition that might have caused the accident.
We may never know the details, but we do know that Tom has moved on. He was proud of his Irish heritage: May he receive a warm welcome from the ancestors and be made welcome at their feasts.
Tom was 23. He came to Denver with his mom, Cindy, when he was 3 and lived here twenty years, until the tragically ill-fated move in August, 2007. Many will remember him from Denver-area art openings throughout the 1980s and early ‘90s (when aunt Renna was the art critic for Westword), and from the Denver Wiccan-pagan/DragonFest community 1990-2003. More friends will recall him from school, ROTC and from his Army basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and the years since. He had been working as a mechanic for RTD prior to the move to Council Bluffs, Iowa, near Pam’s family, his own father and other McKeever kin.
We’ve posted some pictures CLICK! and will be adding more. Thanks to those who shared their memories for a Dia de los Muertos altar at t
he annual show at Pirate: A Contemporary Art Oasis.
The Dia de los Muertos celebration at Pirate took place on Friday, November 2, 2007. See some pictures by clicking on the photo-page link given above or the picture to the left.
Even as a little dude, Tom loved the Day of the Dead exhibit, in all its festive and macabre glory, with the altars and Aztec dancers, a Mexican contrast and complement to Halloween and Samhain. The altar mom Cindy, brother Dylan and I (aunt Renna) built was weird, funny, and poignant, with his favorite foods, drinks, books, toys and more. It felt like a kick-ass, true-spirit-of-Tom altar. Assembling it was cathartic, sad, fun, and somehow made his loss even more real...
Tom is grieved and deeply missed in Colorado by his mom Cindy McKeever-Olguin, younger brother and sister Dylan and Brigitta, aunt Renna Shesso, grandmother Lorraine Clegg and by many friends from a variety of communities; uncle Bob and aunt Melody and many other Clegg relatives in Illinois; by his father Thomas Joseph McKeever III, younger sisters and brother Sarah, Amanda and Kevin, aunt Debbie, grandparents Tom J. McKeever and Jan McKeever and extended family in Omaha and Illinois; and by the young family he’d created with Pam, Mackenzie and Dakota.
Please hold Tom — and us, and the Lee and Betters families — in your heart.
The Council Bluffs/Omaha memorial service was Thursday, August 16
We thank all who attended there for their prayers and kindness.
A Denver-area memorial-wake was August 25, 2007
Thanks to all who attended!
“Death is that state in which one exists only in the
memory of others, which is why it is not an end.
No goodbyes, just good memories.”
Tasha Yar,
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Images, top of page, left to right:
Tom with Cindy, one month old, Illinois;
Tom, age 5, Colorado;
Tom about age 9, Colorado;
Grown-up Tom at age 22, Colorado.
Background is a Colorado forest-and-lake area where Tom often camped as a kid and young adult.
This is a GREEN website and business,