MADD REMEMBERS 27 VICTIMS OF CARROLLTON CRASH DURING HOLIDAYS

Published: November 25, 2015 Author: Matt Groves WTVQ

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ)- On December 3rd, Mothers Against Drunk Driving will remember the lives of many lost to drunk driving. Those include 27 lost at once 27 years ago.

As she thumbs through rows of pamphlets, Lou Ann McElmurray skims over 27 names. May marked 27 years since those names became forever memorialized after a drunk driver, going the wrong way on I-71 in Carroll County, hit their bus head on. The bus caught fire, killing 27 people.

Inside McElmurray’s 27 pamphlets are 27 stars, engraved with those names. They’ll hang on a tree this year as Mothers Against Drunk Driving or M.A.D.D. joins in on a national initiative to memorialize victims of drunk driving. It’s teaming up with the International Star Registry. The 27 victims of the Carrollton bus crash were donated free of charge but the Registry is offering a discounted price to have a star named for your loved on and engraved to be placed on the tree.

“Once we got the stars it was pretty overwhelming just to see them and just knowing how many families were touched by one single incident that happened, it was a bad choice and because of that, everyone lost somebody that was close to them and for us it’s just a way of remembering them,” says McElmurray.

M.A.D.D. says Kentucky’s Day of Remembrance will be held December 3rd at 2 p.m. at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet building for a tree lighting ceremony.