A town still grieving

BY MARTIN C. EVANS | Newsday Staff Writer

It was a simple act of kindness -- a baby gift brought to Sheryl Snyder's door by the mother of an old friend. But in this small Pennsylvania town, where sadness has settled since 16 of its high school students and five chaperones were killed in one awful instant, even a small gift can make a new mother remember her sorrow.

"To this day I have this guilt," said Snyder. "I've always had to wonder why was I allowed to be alive and Cheryl was not."

Cheryl Nibert, her best friend, had been among members of the Montoursville High School French Club who flew toward Paris in the twilight of July 17, 1996, aboard TWA Flight 800.

Ten years after the jet exploded and plunged into the Atlantic off the coast of Long Island, classmates such as Snyder are getting married, having babies and building careers -- even as they remain bonded to those who were aboard. Theirs is a town so shaken by the tragedy that, after a heated debate, the school board banned student trips abroad. And some residents left rather than face the constant reminders of what they had lost.

"I don't think this town will ever get over this," said Betty Schwenke, 85, a retired knitting supply shop owner who has lived all her life within six miles of where she sat sipping coffee at Johnny Z's diner.

Montoursville, population 4,777 and shrinking as industry moves away, is a small, working- and middle-class village nestled in the broad central Pennsylvania plateau where the Susquehanna River cuts through the Alleghenies.

Saltbox houses squat upon neatly trimmed lawns, American flags flutter from porch rails and children bike freely from one end of town to the other.

People here say they are accustomed to feeling safe in this everyone-knows-everyone town, where the local bake shop sells shoo-fly pie, the gas station in the village center sells live bait and Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina -- Montoursville's best-known resident -- comes and goes at his brother's sub shop without raising an eyebrow.

But it is hard to overstate how deeply hurt this town remains.

"We all felt we were cursed," said Melissa Ott, 26, who graduated with the Class of 1997, then left town for most of the next eight years because she felt she needed to get away. "When I'd meet someone who knew someone who died, I'd think to myself, 'you've only had one friend die?' "

Memories of those on the doomed flight are everywhere. "There is always something that reminds people of what happened," said Ott.

There is the display near the principal's office at the high school, which among other items includes a pink cherub sitting upon a "tears quilt," and a basketball dedicated to "Amanda #44."

There is the monument that stands just off Broad Street: a tall, bronze angel cupped by a circle of trees, whose pedestal is inscribed with the names of the lost.

The trip claimed the lives of some of the high school's most capable students. Wendy Wolfson, 16, had won an award for pieces she performed at Carnegie Hall. Rance Hettler, 18, was preparing to study criminal justice that fall at Northeastern University. Amanda Karschner, 17, was a student organizer and co-captain of the girls basketball team.

"Everyone in town either knew a victim's family or knew someone who was close to them," said Nick Altebrando, 50, who grew up in Selden and has been a Montoursville school teacher since 1978. It's a town that reminds him of the small Long Island villages of t he 1960s, where people gather at the local diner, at church, at Little League.

Rev. Bruce Fisher, 72, said the drumbeat of death shook his confidence in his ability to bring comfort through faith.

"Nothing in my theological training or anything in my past prepared me for such a catastrophic event," he said.

"There is not a lot that you can say at that point -- it is not a time for theologizing," said Fisher. "I felt inadequate in many ways."

In the weeks after the crash, Fisher presided over the funerals of five of his congregants at Faith United Methodist Church -- Jacqueline Watson, Jordan Bower, Larissa Uzupis, Nibert and Hettler. In the months after that, he was asked to help design a memorial for the victims and assisted with grief counseling for members of his church.

Nibert had been president of youth fellowship at Fisher's church. On the Sunday before she was leaving for Paris, Fisher had bought a farewell gift, rhubarb pie, to Cheryl's home.