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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

A tragic loss

Community rocked by death of teen

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 9/11/14

TOWER-SOUDAN— Residents of these two small communities are still coming to grips with the tragic death of Kendra Folstad, a bright and enthusiastic 16-year-old girl, who died Friday, Sept. 5 from …

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A tragic loss

Community rocked by death of teen

Posted

TOWER-SOUDAN— Residents of these two small communities are still coming to grips with the tragic death of Kendra Folstad, a bright and enthusiastic 16-year-old girl, who died Friday, Sept. 5 from injuries she sustained in an Aug. 30 car crash.

Friends, family, and community members will have the chance to remember Kendra as part of memorial services, which will be held at St. Martin’s Catholic Church to accommodate what is expected to be a very large crowd. The service is set for 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 13.

The news of Kendra’s death came as a shock to many, particularly since it appeared she was beginning to recover following nearly a week in intensive care at a Duluth hospital. As news of her death began to filter back to the community late Friday morning, many of her friends were stunned.

“I was devastated,” said Austin Ferguson, a senior at the Vermilion Country Charter School in Tower, where Kendra was a student for part of last year. Ferguson was not only a friend, but also a co-worker of Kendra’s at Vermilion Fuel and Food, in Tower, and he said she will be sorely missed by many. Ferguson said he’ll always remember Kendra’s cheerful personality. “In so many small ways, she was always such a good person towards everyone,” he said.

Kendra had attend ed Northeast Range, where she would have been a junior this fall and her death cast a pall on the final day of the first week of classes at the school. School officials provided an opportunity for friends of Kendra’s to talk about her passing with counselors from Northeast Range as well as additional staff brought in from the Tower and North Woods Schools. “We just tried to support the students as much as we could,” said Northeast Range Principal Kelly Engman. “It’s been a sad couple days here,” she added. “I think everybody feels for her family.”

By Monday, students had posted large banners on the walls inside the front entrance, which gave students the chance to write thoughts or prayers for Kendra. Staff at Vermilion Country School also responded to Kendra’s death, providing staff support for friends of Kendra’s, who turned a backroom at the school into a temporary support group. Students at the school will remember Kendra this Friday, as well, by wearing yellow shirts or other items of clothing. A group of students is also planning to visit the accident site, where they’ll share memories of Kendra at a small memorial, including a cross, flowers, photos, and stuffed animals that friends have left along the lonely gravel road where the car Kendra was driving missed a sharp curve and ended up crashing into a steep ditch.

Paige Hinkel, a close friend who said she’s known Kendra “forever,” built the cross for the memorial and has been helping to maintain the site ever since. “It’s my way of coping with it,” she said. “It gives people a way to go talk to her.”

Friends and family are also connecting via a Facebook site called Prayers for Kendra Lee!, which has generated hundreds of comments in the past few days, including comments from her mother and grandmother.

Unanswered questions

While any such accident leaves loved ones looking for answers, the questions in this instance are unusually perplexing. Kendra found herself behind the wheel of an unfamiliar vehicle at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, while taking three juvenile boys to join their parents at Fortune Bay, where the boys hoped to swim and play in the arcade. The car, a mid-2000s Volvo, was owned by the parents of the three boys.

Shortly after picking up the boys in Soudan, Kendra headed west on Hwy. 169. But in downtown Tower, just two miles into their trip, a Breitung police officer pulled the vehicle over when he noticed one of the car’s headlights wasn’t working. When he saw the three juveniles in the vehicle, he contacted their parents and informed them that state law prevented Kendra, who had just received her driver’s license a week earlier, from transporting their children. Minnesota law limits a newly-licensed driver, for their first six months, to just one passenger under age 20, without adult supervision.

Chief Anderson said the parents were unable to pick up the children themselves, so they asked that Kendra bring them home. The Breitung officer issued Kendra a warning and instructed her to turn the car around and head directly back to Soudan, according to Anderson.

Since Kendra was a licensed driver and the car was insured, Anderson said the police had no cause to impound the vehicle, which would have ended the trip at that point.

Less than a mile after being turned around by the police, however, Kendra apparently diverted the car off the highway, onto the lightly-traveled Junction Road, where it appears she accelerated rapidly and failed to notice the 90-degree turn near the Tower-Breitung water tower. While the investigation into the accident continues, a Breitung police press release issued Sept. 2 indicates that speed and driver inexperience appear to have been contributing factors in the accident. The police will likely eventually know more, said Anderson, since investigators have recovered the car’s “black box,” which should have recorded the car’s speed in the final moments leading up to the accident.

While such questions may eventually be answered, it will likely provide little comfort to the many people whose lives she touched. Austin, her friend and co-worker, said Kendra’s never-waning cheerfulness was infectious. “It’s really going to be hard going back to work. I’m amazed at what a big impact she had on this community. She will be really sorely missed.”