Lupardus, William A. died 1973

LUPARDUS, BARKER, ELLIS, MULFORD

Posted By: Bill Waters (email)
Date: 5/15/2016 at 13:24:59

The Bayard News Thursday, July 26, 1973

Three lives were snuffed out simultaneously Tuesday at about 9:45 a m when a truck and car crashed in a grinding smashup at the junction of Highway 25 and a Greene county paved road six miles north of Bayard.
Dead at the scene were William A Lupardus, 36, a Guthrie county farmer with a rural Audubon address; Hazel A Barker, 65, a retired school teacher from Muscatine, and Charles S Ellis. 91, of Ames.
Injured were Cecil Lupardus, 60, of rural Guthrie Center and Steven Lupardus, 8, son of the deceased man. Mr Lupardus and Steven was admitted to the Greene County hospital. Steven was released after examination and Cecil was scheduled for release today.
Funeral services for Bill Lupardus will be held Friday at 2 p m from the Lutheran Church in Audubon. The body will lie in state until that time at the McFadden Funeral Home in Audubon. The bodies of Miss Barker and Mr Ellis have been taken io a funeral home in Keosauqua.
According to Highway Patrolman Dale Hanson of Carroll who investigated, Miss Barker was headed west on the county road and the Lupardus truck driven by Bill Lupardus was headed north. It was Trooper Hanson’s feeling that the Barker car did not stop before entering the intersection and he feels that neither driver saw the other machine in time to avoid the crash. However, tracks of the truck showed that Lupardus attempted to swerve to the left and in so doing hit the Barker 1970 Dodge Polara a glancing blow. Both machines finally came to rest in a corn field on the William Rogan farm. ,The truck was on its side and the Dodge was on its top. The bodies oi tne occupants of the car were trapped inside the wreckage and Lupardus was inside the truck cab. Steven was able to remove himself from the truck.
First on the scene was Marvin Shackelford of Bayard. Help was called from the Don Bielenberg farm. The Starling ambulance from Bayard and the Mason ambulance from Coon Rapids rushed to the scene and the Bayard Volunteer fire department helped remove the victims.
Miss Barker was a sister of Joe Barker, Guthrie County Superintendent of Schools, and Mr Ellis was his uncle. Miss Barker had picked up the uncle in Ames early Tuesday and was taking him to visit his nephew in Guthrie Center. This was to be a birthday present as he was 91 Monday. Mr Ellises widow lives in a nursing home.
Son of Cecil Lupardus and Mrs Lucille Mulford of Belmond, Bill Lupardus is survived by his wife, Norene, and five children. They are Linda 12; Mike, 9; Steven,8, and twins, Debbie and Dianne, 2.
One of Guthrie county’s leading young farmers, Bill Lupardus lived on the Audubon county line in Union township where he and his father farmed about a thousand acres of land. In addition, Bill was a large livestock producer.
Trooper Hanson was particularly critical of the intersection where the accident occurred. It is a fact that many near-fatal accidents have happened here in the past few years. Hanson has made a formal complaint to the Greene County Engineer’s office. He recommends that rumble strips be installed on the county paving.
Although vision is clear from the east, for some unknown reason traffic too many times just doesn’t get stopped. Also, according to Hanson, it was raining hard at the time of the crash with visibility very low.
Tuesday’s crash claiming three lives is the worst ever in this immediate area.

Transcribed from a newspaper collected by Delbert Ford of Coon Rapids, Iowa and rescued from a recycling bin in Blair, Nebraska by Connie Buller.