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We are welcome to the program.
Nice to have you here. Final hour
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of today's award winning show. Jimmy
is my name? You want to jump
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in, I'll take some emails.
I'll read some Jimmy Lakey at iHeartMedia dot
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com, the Zuckerberg Facebook site.
It's Facebook dot com, slash Jimmy Lakey
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fan page. Build the whole thing
out Twitter, Truth Social those sites are
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just my name. J I M
M Y L A K E Y.
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Glad to have you here on the
show. I'm excited for this next guest.
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It's a moment of look back in
history to nineteen fifty nine. If
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I, me and Phil Bairlee was
it was just a wee tike. But
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some events happened on that day that
I wasn't aware of it until a couple
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of weeks ago. But there was
a plane crash leaving the Denver staple to
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the airport, and it happened right
over what we now what is Firestone,
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Colorado, and building a neighborhood there
called Barefoot Lakes. It happened right in
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that area, but debris was spread
for a long place. Let me get
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Phil Barely on the program. Here
he is on the hotline Phil, Welcome
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to the show. Thanks for the
time today. Jimmy, thank you for
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talking to me. Well, let's
talk about that day, and I believe
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November nineteen fifty nine you were just
a wee boy. Your family has deep
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roots in the area. Talk about
your experience that day. Let's start there.
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Well, this was November one,
nineteen fifty five, not fifty nine,
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nineteen fifty five. I was five
and a half years old. My
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dad was the manager of Johnson's Corner. He picked him and my mom picked
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a location for Joe Johnson in nineteen
fifty and fifty one, and my dad
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ran up for the first twenty six
years. We were on the way to
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my grandmother's birthday, which was November
first, in North Longmont. We were
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about half a mile north of Longmont. There was a tremendous flash in the
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sky that lit it up just like
it is outside bright. It was off
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to the southeast. We were on
Highway twenty seven, just north of Longmont.
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At first, week said is it
a meteor? I mean, I'm
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five and a half years old.
My older brother was three years older than
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me. And then we saw the
second part of the flash four seconds later,
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and that was the thousands of gallons
of airplane fuel that was on the
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plane catching fire and trailing fire to
the ground almost vertically. My dad,
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being civic minded, Johnson's Corner was
the only place open in northern Colorado at
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that time at night, and my
dad said, something terrible has happened.
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So we just dropped off the packages
and the cake at my aunt and uncle's
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house in Longmont, and we headed
east to the crash site. We could
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see the flaming wreckage. I mean, as a small child, I'll never
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forget it. We pulled up to
the corner of the field. It was
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about half to three miles three quarters
of a mile east of what is now
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I twenty five and just about a
quarter to half a mile south of Highway
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sixty six. They's burning wreckage in
the field. My dad got out to
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see and he just told us to
stay in the car. We could see
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flaming wreckage everywhere. I distinctly remember, and this has etched in my mind,
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a pair of seats. You could
just see the silhouettes of the people
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still strapped in the seats. They
were almost sitting up, as if it
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was just normal people sitting in a
chair amid all these flaming debris. Wow.
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And at the time, I'm just
a kid. I didn't know.
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But my dad got out and started
helping. Well, at that point he
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knew most of the law enforcement people
in northern Colorado. I knew a Johnson's
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Corner and he finally a deputy share
for someone local. This was clear out
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in the middle of nowhere, almost
the Mead Fire Department, volunteer and Platteville
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and that all started responding. But
it takes a while to get mobilized.
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And they mobilized the Longmont Division of
the Colorado National Guard. But it takes
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time to get those people there.
But my dad helped establish the perimeter.
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They actually had him stay at the
intersections of some of the roads and as
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my dad told me later, that
someone actually issued him a firearm and he
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was ordered to tell people to turn
around, don't get out of their cars
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because there was massive people starting looting
already in nineteen fifty five, looters show
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up. Now, where did the
looters come from? It was very rural
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area and any anywhere people driving by
on the highways that saw this. We
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even heard that there was looters from
local colleges or towns that come out there
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to the crash site and they were
picking up wallatsu. There was I won't
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even describe some of the any humanity
that they were doing to dead people.
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Wow, let me reset the table
being artifacts. Let me reset here.
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It's the voice of Phil Bareley.
We're talking about a plane crash that happened
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in nineteen fifty five. United Airlines
Flight six two nine headed from Denver Stapleton
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up towards Seattle and it blew up
in mid air. So you're on the
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on the crash site and your dad
helps establish the perimeter, and then we'll
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come back to the crash site in
a second. But for those who don't
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know what happened, how did this
plane explode? It was it was blown
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up. But explain that. Okay, I'll only mention the guy's name one
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time because I don't want to give
any credit to this monster. But his
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name was John or Jack Gilbert Graham. He put twenty five sticks of dynamite
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on a timing device in his mother's
suitcase at Stapleton Airport. She was on
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a flight that was going to go
to Portland in Seattle and then she was
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going on to Alaska. He hated
her they had been in a lot of
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disputes. He was a no good
if you want to use the simple term.
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He was under indictment or whatever for
stealing paychecks from his employer. He
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had tried insurance fraud. He had
been at AWL when he was still in
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the Coastguard. He bought a thirty
seven thousand, five hundred dollars life insurance
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policy from a vending machine at Stapleton
Airport. He also bought two other policies
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that were either sixty two hundred and
fifty dollars or seventy five hundred dollars depending
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on the sources, and those were
with his assisters and his aunt has beneficiaries.
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But at the last minute he put
his mom at the plane and he
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packed the twenty five sticks of dynamite
in our suitcase. They actually had to
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pay a few dollars extra because the
suitcase was heavy, but nobody checked him
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at that time, and so it
got put on the plane in cargo hold
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number four, which was in the
rear of the plane, forward of the
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tail. The plane was delayed,
had been delayed for a couple of reasons,
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and he wanted the plane to blow
up over the mountains in northern Colorado
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southern Wyoming, so that they couldn't
find the wreckage or piece it together.
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It was delayed so it blew up
over essentially the town of Firestone. Now,
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the wreckage went across six miles and
the tail blew off of the plane
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and it literally landed. It glided
down and landed in a farmer's field about
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a mile and a half south of
the main crash site. Wow, Now
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you told me that there's like the
mean Fire Department, they still find pieces
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of this plane and there's buckets of
it that are there that nobody knows what
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to do with. There's still buckets
of this wreckage or nineteen fifty five,
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And that's what we're wanting to do, is we're wanting to establish a really
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nice memorial to those forty four people
who died, innocent people, and we're
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trying to determine they have to be. I reassembled that plane in a hangar
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in Denver, but there's still pieces
of that that turn up. We've been
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talking to me and they didn't know
what to do with it. I'd like
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to myself, since I'm on the
committee to do this, I'd like to
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embed it maybe in a memorial or
something like that, or make it displayable
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either at the Mead Museum or Firestone
Museum or somewhere. These are small pieces.
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The plane went vertically in it made
a huge crater in the ground.
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Now you said this that the really
what now the neighborhood or subdivision of Barefoot
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Lakes that area is is the crash
site. And you're working and already talked
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to the town of Firestone about designating
some parcel to put a memorial to memorialize
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the forty four that died in flight
six two nine. How have they given
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the land? Do we have the
land yet? Are you still in process?
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I'll figure that out. We're still
in the process of working all of
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that out. Uh, there's a
lot of entities involved. The city of
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Longmont was deeply involved, me was
Johnstown or Firestone really hadn't hardly formed at
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that point. Platteville the police was
deeply involved. They sent officers out to
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help get the established the perimeter there. There's miles of roads that they had
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to shut off, and they activated
the Colorado National Guard out of Camp George,
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West, which, interestingly enough,
my father in law of fifty two
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years he's passed away now, but
he was in the Colorado National Garden got
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sent to that site. So my
dad and my father in law were both
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on that side amazingly, and your
dad was running Johnson's Corner, and he
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made sure that they had coffee and
all the food they needed down there in
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the on the site for all the
people that were working it. Yeah,
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the minute we was able to leave
the site at about I don't know,
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I guess one thirty in the morning, Dad went back to Johnson's Corner and
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called in off duty cooks to report
early. And he called all of suppliers
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for all kinds of stuff coffee,
all kinds of our food, potato chips
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and pop and hamburger meat or whatever, and he put people to work and
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for two days he did nothing but
haul food in boxes down to feed those
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crash survivors Army and those crash up
the emergency response people. Uh. And
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so he fed them. And a
month later the head of the State Patrol
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called my dad and called him to
Denver and presented him with a letter.
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I have the letter in my hand
thanking my dad, Clayton Barley, and
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Johnson's Corner for their invaluable help during
that crisis. Everything was spread out.
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There's no phone lines that the phone
company had to make hang lines. They
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the Armory and Greedy at the airport
became the Morgue Uh. They made the
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head of the investigation team at the
Imperial Hotel in Longlant. I believe it
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was it was a main Colorado event, but it also it also was nationwide
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implications because this was the first time
that anyone in the United States had ever
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bombed a commercial airliner out of the
air by an onboard device. It was
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also the first time that they tried
the defendant and allowed TV cameras in the
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courtroom. Under the judge's control,
he could hit a button and turn on
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and off the camera and that was
the first time historically. Well, looking
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out our TSA. All of this
kind of started with that, and even
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they even used the forensics in the
lockerby bombing the FBI did to try and
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determine it. Now I've met and
on our committee is Conrad and Martha Hopp.
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They're in their late eighties. It
was their fields that the plane crashed
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on. It was on his father
and the hile and the file farm,
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and they went out and drove rings
around the bodies with their pickups and covered
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them with sheets to identify the b
and Conrad was eighteen years old at the
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time. Wow, Phil, and
Martha her and her dad did the same
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thing too, And there was a
lot of wonderful people that showed up to
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help and on in the contrast was
there was a lot of neer do well
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people who were there just to loose. Phil, what surprised me? Yeah,
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well, let me jump in before
we run short on time. I
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want to remind people. Phil Baarreley
is my guest and he's on a committee
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that they're working to put a memorial
up on the site of near the site
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of ground zero Worth flight six to
nine crashed. United Flight six to nine
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crashed and now what we know is
Firestone Colorado and that was in nineteen fifty
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five. Forty four people died in
the domestic bombing blow up of that airplane.
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You just heard the story. Phil. Before we run short on time,
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you're trying to Your committee is raising
some money and on August the third,
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seven to nine pm at the Rialto
Theater there's going to be a concert
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for the and if it's in proceeds
will start funding this memorial. If folks
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want to learn more. It's uh, Christine Alice, I believe in the
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Canyon Echoes is going to be playing
real quick at plug this event. And
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how do folks get involved? Yes, well, uh, we we have
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a GoFundMe. It's a six flight
six two nine memorial. There's also a
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website of flight six to nine Memorial
dot org. And also if people want
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to individually uh sand checks, they
can send them to Flight six two nine
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Memorial in care of Martha Hopf who
is a witness. She's she's doing that
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and her address is one one four
one three well to County Road thirteen,
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Longmont, Colorado, eight oh five
four. The website again is Flight six
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nine Memorial dot O. RG.
Philiberry, I appreciate you in demin,
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folks and learn more about this event
there as well. Appreciate you hopping on.
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We're gonna run short on time,
but Phil Barely is my guest.
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And again, this is a nineteen
fifty five airplane crash. How many of
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you knew about that one? I
bet you didn't. But it's again flight
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six two nine Memorial dot org.
You can learn more and there is a
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fundraising concert event Memorial Concert on August
the third, some live music at the
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rialto theater and you can learn more
about that at the at the website Flight
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six to nine Memorial dot com.
And there you have it. It's a
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fascinating story back in history, and
the eyewitnesses telling the story is just absolutely
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tremendous. All right, good to
have you here on the radio show.
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So I said, we're about short
on time here in that segment, if
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you want to jump in. Final
word of today's show eight six six triple
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eight fifty four forty nine. Eighty
six six triple eight fifty four forty nine.
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Everybody ready for the hot weather proofs. I'm looking at the forecast here
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just a moment ago, very very
hot weather. We'll come back to the
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next segment. I'll play some more
of this up. Well, I'll replay
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if you missed it. Michael be
It goes on CNN, and I don't
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think he wanted to, but he
did. And he goes on and talking
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about his thoughts on the Joe Biden
saga that's out there. Also will continue
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talking about Donald Trump's running mate.
I think here's still three or four days
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from getting an announcement on that,
but I could be wrong, but there's
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lots still to come. Here on
the radio show. You don't want to
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miss it. Oh, Vladimir Selensky, he's in Washington right now. He's
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got a he's got he's got an
empty suitcase asking to take home some more
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cash. Yeah, I'll be back
Lakey on the radio, Good Morning Colorado,
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final half hour coming up, six
hundred k c O l
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We are welcome to the program.
Nice to have you here. Final hour
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of today's award winning show. Jimmy
is my name? You want to jump
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in, I'll take some emails.
I'll read some Jimmy Lakey at iHeartMedia dot
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com, the Zuckerberg Facebook site.
It's Facebook dot com, slash Jimmy Lakey
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00:00:16.839 --> 00:00:20.719
fan page. Build the whole thing
out Twitter, Truth Social those sites are
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just my name. J I M
M Y L A K E Y.
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Glad to have you here on the
show. I'm excited for this next guest.
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It's a moment of look back in
history to nineteen fifty nine. If
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I, me and Phil Bairlee was
it was just a wee tike. But
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some events happened on that day that
I wasn't aware of it until a couple
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of weeks ago. But there was
a plane crash leaving the Denver staple to
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the airport, and it happened right
over what we now what is Firestone,
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Colorado, and building a neighborhood there
called Barefoot Lakes. It happened right in
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that area, but debris was spread
for a long place. Let me get
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Phil Barely on the program. Here
he is on the hotline Phil, Welcome
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to the show. Thanks for the
time today. Jimmy, thank you for
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talking to me. Well, let's
talk about that day, and I believe
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November nineteen fifty nine you were just
a wee boy. Your family has deep
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roots in the area. Talk about
your experience that day. Let's start there.
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Well, this was November one,
nineteen fifty five, not fifty nine,
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nineteen fifty five. I was five
and a half years old. My
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dad was the manager of Johnson's Corner. He picked him and my mom picked
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a location for Joe Johnson in nineteen
fifty and fifty one, and my dad
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ran up for the first twenty six
years. We were on the way to
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my grandmother's birthday, which was November
first, in North Longmont. We were
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about half a mile north of Longmont. There was a tremendous flash in the
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sky that lit it up just like
it is outside bright. It was off
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to the southeast. We were on
Highway twenty seven, just north of Longmont.
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At first, week said is it
a meteor? I mean, I'm
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five and a half years old.
My older brother was three years older than
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me. And then we saw the
second part of the flash four seconds later,
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and that was the thousands of gallons
of airplane fuel that was on the
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plane catching fire and trailing fire to
the ground almost vertically. My dad,
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being civic minded, Johnson's Corner was
the only place open in northern Colorado at
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that time at night, and my
dad said, something terrible has happened.
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So we just dropped off the packages
and the cake at my aunt and uncle's
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house in Longmont, and we headed
east to the crash site. We could
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see the flaming wreckage. I mean, as a small child, I'll never
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forget it. We pulled up to
the corner of the field. It was
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about half to three miles three quarters
of a mile east of what is now
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I twenty five and just about a
quarter to half a mile south of Highway
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sixty six. They's burning wreckage in
the field. My dad got out to
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see and he just told us to
stay in the car. We could see
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flaming wreckage everywhere. I distinctly remember, and this has etched in my mind,
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a pair of seats. You could
just see the silhouettes of the people
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still strapped in the seats. They
were almost sitting up, as if it
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was just normal people sitting in a
chair amid all these flaming debris. Wow.
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And at the time, I'm just
a kid. I didn't know.
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But my dad got out and started
helping. Well, at that point he
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knew most of the law enforcement people
in northern Colorado. I knew a Johnson's
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Corner and he finally a deputy share
for someone local. This was clear out
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in the middle of nowhere, almost
the Mead Fire Department, volunteer and Platteville
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and that all started responding. But
it takes a while to get mobilized.
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And they mobilized the Longmont Division of
the Colorado National Guard. But it takes
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time to get those people there.
But my dad helped establish the perimeter.
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They actually had him stay at the
intersections of some of the roads and as
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my dad told me later, that
someone actually issued him a firearm and he
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was ordered to tell people to turn
around, don't get out of their cars
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because there was massive people starting looting
already in nineteen fifty five, looters show
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up. Now, where did the
looters come from? It was very rural
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area and any anywhere people driving by
on the highways that saw this. We
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even heard that there was looters from
local colleges or towns that come out there
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to the crash site and they were
picking up wallatsu. There was I won't
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even describe some of the any humanity
that they were doing to dead people.
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Wow, let me reset the table
being artifacts. Let me reset here.
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It's the voice of Phil Bareley.
We're talking about a plane crash that happened
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in nineteen fifty five. United Airlines
Flight six two nine headed from Denver Stapleton
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up towards Seattle and it blew up
in mid air. So you're on the
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on the crash site and your dad
helps establish the perimeter, and then we'll
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come back to the crash site in
a second. But for those who don't
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know what happened, how did this
plane explode? It was it was blown
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up. But explain that. Okay, I'll only mention the guy's name one
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time because I don't want to give
any credit to this monster. But his
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name was John or Jack Gilbert Graham. He put twenty five sticks of dynamite
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on a timing device in his mother's
suitcase at Stapleton Airport. She was on
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a flight that was going to go
to Portland in Seattle and then she was
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going on to Alaska. He hated
her they had been in a lot of
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disputes. He was a no good
if you want to use the simple term.
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He was under indictment or whatever for
stealing paychecks from his employer. He
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had tried insurance fraud. He had
been at AWL when he was still in
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the Coastguard. He bought a thirty
seven thousand, five hundred dollars life insurance
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policy from a vending machine at Stapleton
Airport. He also bought two other policies
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that were either sixty two hundred and
fifty dollars or seventy five hundred dollars depending
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on the sources, and those were
with his assisters and his aunt has beneficiaries.
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But at the last minute he put
his mom at the plane and he
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packed the twenty five sticks of dynamite
in our suitcase. They actually had to
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pay a few dollars extra because the
suitcase was heavy, but nobody checked him
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at that time, and so it
got put on the plane in cargo hold
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number four, which was in the
rear of the plane, forward of the
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tail. The plane was delayed,
had been delayed for a couple of reasons,
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and he wanted the plane to blow
up over the mountains in northern Colorado
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southern Wyoming, so that they couldn't
find the wreckage or piece it together.
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It was delayed so it blew up
over essentially the town of Firestone. Now,
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the wreckage went across six miles and
the tail blew off of the plane
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and it literally landed. It glided
down and landed in a farmer's field about
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a mile and a half south of
the main crash site. Wow, Now
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you told me that there's like the
mean Fire Department, they still find pieces
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of this plane and there's buckets of
it that are there that nobody knows what
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to do with. There's still buckets
of this wreckage or nineteen fifty five,
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And that's what we're wanting to do, is we're wanting to establish a really
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nice memorial to those forty four people
who died, innocent people, and we're
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trying to determine they have to be. I reassembled that plane in a hangar
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in Denver, but there's still pieces
of that that turn up. We've been
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talking to me and they didn't know
what to do with it. I'd like
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to myself, since I'm on the
committee to do this, I'd like to
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embed it maybe in a memorial or
something like that, or make it displayable
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either at the Mead Museum or Firestone
Museum or somewhere. These are small pieces.
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The plane went vertically in it made
a huge crater in the ground.
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Now you said this that the really
what now the neighborhood or subdivision of Barefoot
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Lakes that area is is the crash
site. And you're working and already talked
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to the town of Firestone about designating
some parcel to put a memorial to memorialize
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the forty four that died in flight
six two nine. How have they given
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the land? Do we have the
land yet? Are you still in process?
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I'll figure that out. We're still
in the process of working all of
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that out. Uh, there's a
lot of entities involved. The city of
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Longmont was deeply involved, me was
Johnstown or Firestone really hadn't hardly formed at
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that point. Platteville the police was
deeply involved. They sent officers out to
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help get the established the perimeter there. There's miles of roads that they had
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to shut off, and they activated
the Colorado National Guard out of Camp George,
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West, which, interestingly enough,
my father in law of fifty two
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years he's passed away now, but
he was in the Colorado National Garden got
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sent to that site. So my
dad and my father in law were both
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on that side amazingly, and your
dad was running Johnson's Corner, and he
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made sure that they had coffee and
all the food they needed down there in
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the on the site for all the
people that were working it. Yeah,
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the minute we was able to leave
the site at about I don't know,
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I guess one thirty in the morning, Dad went back to Johnson's Corner and
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called in off duty cooks to report
early. And he called all of suppliers
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for all kinds of stuff coffee,
all kinds of our food, potato chips
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and pop and hamburger meat or whatever, and he put people to work and
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for two days he did nothing but
haul food in boxes down to feed those
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crash survivors Army and those crash up
the emergency response people. Uh. And
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so he fed them. And a
month later the head of the State Patrol
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called my dad and called him to
Denver and presented him with a letter.
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I have the letter in my hand
thanking my dad, Clayton Barley, and
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Johnson's Corner for their invaluable help during
that crisis. Everything was spread out.
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There's no phone lines that the phone
company had to make hang lines. They
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the Armory and Greedy at the airport
became the Morgue Uh. They made the
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head of the investigation team at the
Imperial Hotel in Longlant. I believe it
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was it was a main Colorado event, but it also it also was nationwide
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implications because this was the first time
that anyone in the United States had ever
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bombed a commercial airliner out of the
air by an onboard device. It was
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also the first time that they tried
the defendant and allowed TV cameras in the
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courtroom. Under the judge's control,
he could hit a button and turn on
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and off the camera and that was
the first time historically. Well, looking
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out our TSA. All of this
kind of started with that, and even
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they even used the forensics in the
lockerby bombing the FBI did to try and
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determine it. Now I've met and
on our committee is Conrad and Martha Hopp.
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They're in their late eighties. It
was their fields that the plane crashed
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on. It was on his father
and the hile and the file farm,
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and they went out and drove rings
around the bodies with their pickups and covered
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them with sheets to identify the b
and Conrad was eighteen years old at the
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time. Wow, Phil, and
Martha her and her dad did the same
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thing too, And there was a
lot of wonderful people that showed up to
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help and on in the contrast was
there was a lot of neer do well
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people who were there just to loose. Phil, what surprised me? Yeah,
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well, let me jump in before
we run short on time. I
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want to remind people. Phil Baarreley
is my guest and he's on a committee
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that they're working to put a memorial
up on the site of near the site
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of ground zero Worth flight six to
nine crashed. United Flight six to nine
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crashed and now what we know is
Firestone Colorado and that was in nineteen fifty
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five. Forty four people died in
the domestic bombing blow up of that airplane.
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You just heard the story. Phil. Before we run short on time,
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you're trying to Your committee is raising
some money and on August the third,
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seven to nine pm at the Rialto
Theater there's going to be a concert
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for the and if it's in proceeds
will start funding this memorial. If folks
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want to learn more. It's uh, Christine Alice, I believe in the
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Canyon Echoes is going to be playing
real quick at plug this event. And
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how do folks get involved? Yes, well, uh, we we have
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a GoFundMe. It's a six flight
six two nine memorial. There's also a
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website of flight six to nine Memorial
dot org. And also if people want
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to individually uh sand checks, they
can send them to Flight six two nine
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Memorial in care of Martha Hopf who
is a witness. She's she's doing that
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and her address is one one four
one three well to County Road thirteen,
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Longmont, Colorado, eight oh five
four. The website again is Flight six
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nine Memorial dot O. RG.
Philiberry, I appreciate you in demin,
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folks and learn more about this event
there as well. Appreciate you hopping on.
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We're gonna run short on time,
but Phil Barely is my guest.
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And again, this is a nineteen
fifty five airplane crash. How many of
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you knew about that one? I
bet you didn't. But it's again flight
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six two nine Memorial dot org.
You can learn more and there is a
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fundraising concert event Memorial Concert on August
the third, some live music at the
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rialto theater and you can learn more
about that at the at the website Flight
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six to nine Memorial dot com.
And there you have it. It's a
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fascinating story back in history, and
the eyewitnesses telling the story is just absolutely
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tremendous. All right, good to
have you here on the radio show.
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So I said, we're about short
on time here in that segment, if
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you want to jump in. Final
word of today's show eight six six triple
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eight fifty four forty nine. Eighty
six six triple eight fifty four forty nine.
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Everybody ready for the hot weather proofs. I'm looking at the forecast here
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just a moment ago, very very
hot weather. We'll come back to the
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next segment. I'll play some more
of this up. Well, I'll replay
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if you missed it. Michael be
It goes on CNN, and I don't
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think he wanted to, but he
did. And he goes on and talking
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about his thoughts on the Joe Biden
saga that's out there. Also will continue
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talking about Donald Trump's running mate.
I think here's still three or four days
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from getting an announcement on that,
but I could be wrong, but there's
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lots still to come. Here on
the radio show. You don't want to
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miss it. Oh, Vladimir Selensky, he's in Washington right now. He's
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got a he's got he's got an
empty suitcase asking to take home some more
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cash. Yeah, I'll be back
Lakey on the radio, Good Morning Colorado,
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final half hour coming up, six
hundred k c O l
