Enterprise High School students who started their new school year on Wednesday found a new feature on their campus: A sculpture and renewed version of a 56-year-old memorial to five students who died on their way to a football game.
It’s a testimony to those touched by an accident that shocked North State communities in 1968 and influenced changes in the way schools convey students to events.
Previously a fountain, the new memorial has no water feature. Instead, at its center there’s a sculpture by Shasta County artist John Martin Streeby: Five metal ribbons that curve upward from the memorial’s center. There are also five plaques with pictures and quotes of remembrance, one dedicated to each of the five girls who died.
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Students, faculty, staff and alumni helped raise more than $80,000 to restore the memorial and help fund an ongoing program designed to teach teens the dangers of distracted driving, said Steve Main, who was a senior in the same class as the five students. He and other alumni pioneered the memorial project.
As of Wednesday, the memorial itself is complete. The school has only to finish landscaping, probably with trees, shrubs, tables and murals, Main said.
The school will host a public dedication of the new memorial from 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. on September 29 at Enterprise High School, 3411 Churn Creek Road in Redding.
People can pay for memorial bricks used in the landscaping, or support the safe driving education programs, both through ‘Remember the 5’ at rememberthe5.org, part of the Enterprise Parent Teacher Student Association. Golfers can also join a tournament fundraiser for the program on Sept. 28, the 56th anniversary of the accident, according to Remember the 5.
“The original memorial and design lasted 30 years before being replaced in 1999 and now we have a new structure 25 years later that will be a centerpiece of the area,” Main said.
Vandalism spurs restoration
Main and other Class of ‘69 alums decided to restore the memorial during their 50th reunion in 2019. The decision followed an incident of vandalism when a rival school threw paint on the memorial, then the fountain. Main said he and his fellow alumni approached Enterprise administration to ask how they could help repair and improve the memorial.
The project bore fruit after five years of grant writing and community donations, including money raised by current students. Ultimately, it’s those current and future generations of students who will benefit, project advocates said.
Bill Roberts lost his 16-year-old daughter Shelley in the crash in 1968. In 2021, Roberts, then 96, told the Record Searchlight he supported the idea of restoring the memorial.
“The significance of the fountain was kind of lost over time,” he said. Once restored, if the memorial “changes the way some teens think about driving safely, it served its purpose,” Roberts said.
Now that Roberts is 100 years old, he probably won’t be able to attend the dedication, Main said.
Away game turns into tragic loss
In September 1968, five Enterprise High School seniors set out for Susanville to cheer and support their school at a football game against Lassen High School. They were:
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Shelley Jane Roberts who played “Buzzy,” the Hornet’s mascot
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Student government representative Donna Lyn Maddox
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Cheerleader Jennifer Lee Brewen
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Cheerleader Deborah Sue Johnson
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Cheerleader Kathryn Van Doren
Their driver was Shelley Roberts’ boyfriend, Shasta College sophomore Warren Martineau. Two years prior, Martineau was convicted of misdemeanor manslaughter after police reported he struck and killed a child near the intersection of Chestnut and Placer streets in downtown Redding.
According to a 1998 story in the Record Searchlight, his driver’s license was suspended for a year and he was sentenced to community service.
With his license restored, Martineau attempted to drive the five girls to the away game in his 1959 sedan. The motorists were traveling on Highway 44 at about noon on Sept. 28 when Martineau allegedly swerved into the path of an oncoming logging truck. He lost control of the vehicle, hitting a curve at 70 mph and driving off the road, according to a California Highway Patrol report.
Martineau and the five girls were killed instantly, the report said. Officers found full and empty beer cans in the car, but Martineau’s blood-alcohol content was .06% — below the state’s legal limit of .1% in 1968, according to the CHP.
Their school peers found out about the deadly crash at halftime during the game, said Shelley’s brother Scott Roberts, who was 9 years old at the time. “A lot of the kids had to drive back past the crash site,” he said.
Bill Roberts, then a CHP officer, got a call on his police radio telling him to go home. Once there, a second call broke the news his daughter Shelley and her peers had died in the crash.
READ MORE: Crash that killed 6 Redding teens still echoes more than 50 years later at Enterprise High
The tragedy rocked the Redding community, according to Bill Roberts. “It pretty much paralyzed the town for weeks. We (families of those who died) got a bit of comfort from the community grieving with us,” he said.
Mourners filled Enterprise’s campus for a joint funeral, with the five girls’ coffins lined up in the gym, flanked with banks of flowers, according to archival stories in the Record Searchlight.
“I didn’t really process it until later in life,” said Scott Roberts, who helped spearhead the memorial restoration project.
Crash spurs change to how students transported to events
The accident drew nationwide attention and prompted North State school officials to create policies regulating student transportation to school events. New rules required either students take district transportation or that parents drive them, said Shasta Union High School District superintendent Jim Cloney.
Those policies were further revised in the 1990s, and — with a few amendments ― still apply to schools in 2024, Cloney said:
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Students attending schools may transport themselves, but not other students, to events within a region stretching from Central Valley High School in the north, to Foothill High School in the east, to Shasta High School in the west and to West Valley High School in the south.
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Anything beyond that area, schools must provide transportation on district vans or buses.
For questions about school transportation policies contact your child’s school district or call the Shasta County Office of Education at 530-225-0200.
Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Enterprise unveils memorial for teens who died in Highway 44 crash
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