#FlashbackFriday: 1979—Sheppard BX Gives and Receives Support After Monster Tornado
On April 10, 1979—46 years ago this week—an F4 tornado struck Wichita Falls, Texas, destroying more than 2,500 homes and killing 45 people.
Sheppard Air Force Base Exchange associate Fran Henthorn, whose husband Art was the store manager, wrote about the storm in the June 1979 Exchange Post. The Henthorns were relatively lucky—their apartment suffered minimal damage. It became an “open house” as neighbors came by to ask for candles and matches.
An Exchange personnel clerk came by with her 3-month-old grandchild: her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter had made a late-afternoon trip to the bank and while they were gone, the tornado destroyed their house.
This photo of the April 1979 Wichita Falls tornado, taken by Wichita Falls Times and Record News photographer Mark Peel, was provided to The Exchange Post in 1979, courtesy of Peel and Times and Record News Managing Editor Charles Ward.
After receiving a call from the Sheppard Security Force, Art Henthorn returned to the base, where he worked 20 hours straight dispensing emergency supplies to those in need. Even though it had no electricity, a Shoppette opened to serve customers, who stood in lines up to two blocks long.
Associates recorded transactions on handheld calculators. Batteries and flashlights, which were in high demand, were transferred from the main store to the Shoppette. When the Shoppette ran out of bread, arrangements were made with the commissary, which wasn’t open, to deliver bread to the store.
Donna Kelley, service vending supervisor, was driving home, keeping an eye on the sky. When things began to look dire, she stopped at a service station, where she didn’t find anyone in the office—the employees were taking shelter in a lube bay. They pulled her in the bay, where she looked up in time to see the roof of the station blow off.
Sheppard AFB Airmen search through the rubble of an apartment complex after the tornado.
Stephen Kossover, sales and merchandise manager, was at his house watching TV when neighbors alerted him that the tornado was coming. As he prepared to go to his storm cellar, he saw the roof of his house being lifted.
“I went into the hall and the bedroom was gone, then the ceiling above me disappeared completely, and before I could move, my house was gone and I was standing in the hall, the only part left,” Kossover told Fran Henthorn. “The storm was so mysterious, I had a picture with a glass front hanging in my hall entrance. It had a verse on it and the tornado blew the lettering off the picture, but didn’t break the glass. I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life. and hope I never have to again.”
No Exchange associates or family members were injured, but seven Sheppard AFB associates’ families were affected by the storm. Some of the families lost their homes; others lost personal belongings.
The next day, the chief of the Alamo Exchange Region issued a call for financial and material assistance for the affected families. The response was immediate. Within three days, three truckloads of clothing and food donated by Exchange associates were on their way to Sheppard.
Associates donated more clothing than the families needed, so the remainder was donated to charitable organizations to distribute to Wichita Falls residents. By May 31, CONUS associates had donated more than $10,000 in cash and checks help their Sheppard teammates, and more was coming in. The money was distributed by the Sheppard AFB Exchange Tornado Relief Committee to the exchange employees involved
“In my opinion, never before has the family attitude of AAFES rapport among employees been more dramatically demonstrated,” Alamo Exchange Region Chief Harold Rayborn said in the August 1979 Exchange Post. “Simple expressions of appreciation to all of those who so generously … fall far short of stating the heartfelt gratitude of the beneficiaries.”
SOURCE: Exchange Post archives
