Crowd expected at film debut about '58 tragedy

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February 9, 2010

Tim Preston/The Independent The Daily Independent Tue Feb 09, 2010, 10:54 PM EST

Prestonsburg — Ticket sales for general admission shows at the Mountain Arts Center in Pres-tonsburg are rare, although a full third of the seats for the Feb. 19 premiere of “The Very Worst Thing” have already been claimed, according to Jill Reynolds-Williams, box office manager.

“We are doing pretty good,” she said Monday.

Reynolds-Williams speculated the local nature of the documentary — which details the story of those who survived, died or had their lives forever changed by the crash of a Floyd County school bus into the cold waters of the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River in 1958 — will likely receive a standing-room-only crowd on the day of the film’s debut.

“Especially with this being a movie premiere,” she said. “We are glad to have this opportunity. This is the first film event we’ve had in many years.”

The tragedy continues to be ranked as the worst in the nation’s history, followed closely by a 1988 wreck in Carrollton that also claimed the lives of 27. The Floyd County bus was carrying 48 elementary and high school students along U.S. 23 near Prestonsburg when it struck the rear of a wrecker truck and careened 50 feet down a muddy embankment into the river. Officials said 22 of the children aboard the bus managed to escape the vehicle and swim to safety, although 26 others and the driver of the bus perished in the river’s frigid waters.

The school bus, No. 27, was quickly destroyed by county officials. Mechanical failure has often been cited as a possible cause for the tragedy.

Director Michael Crisp said strong emotions remain for all who were touched by the Floyd accident.

“A lot of people are obviously still shaken up by it,” Crisp said. “We would have liked to have talked to more family members as well as survivors. Both sets of folks are still tight knit and 21 of the 22 survivors are still alive.”

Crisp said the only accident survivor who has since died is Bill Leedy, the child who kicked open the rear door of the bus and helped save the lives of many aboard.

The film includes photos and recordings made at the time of the accident, as well as interviews with Martha Burchett, one of the children who escaped the bus and was rescued from the river’s edge; John Crum, who was supposed to be on the bus but decided to skip school that day and watched the bus plummet down the embankment into the cold river; Azie Meade, whose 8-year old brother, Jimmy Meade, perished in the wreck; and James Chapman, a retired U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worker who was the first to spot the bus two days after it had been washed downstream.

The documentary will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $8.

The premiere will be followed by a question-and-answer session between the audience, the director and some of those featured in the film. For more information, visit macarts.com or call (888) MACARTS.

TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2651.

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