2 Dreams of Future Die in Arco Plant Fire

Atlantic Richfield refinery worker Luther Booth was counting the days until his retirement when Reformer Unit No. 1 exploded. He had nine shifts left. Booth was going to learn how to play golf.

His partner Steve Snider, still in training, was just beginning a career in the oil refineries, following in the footsteps of his father. Snider was about to move out of his parents’ home into his first apartment.

Booth, 51, of Harbor City and Snider, 20, of Stanton were killed instantly in Thursday’s explosion and fire at the 750-acre Arco refinery in Carson. Stanley Lawrence, 29, of Westminster, died Friday of burns he suffered in the incident.

Outstanding in Band

Snider, a trombone player in Anaheim’s Western High School marching band and its “outstanding member” in 1984, was just beginning his career at the refinery.

Living with his parents since his 1984 graduation, Snider had worked at a variety of jobs until his father, Terry Snider, a Union Oil process foreman, suggested he apply at the Arco plant. Steve began work as an Arco trainee in August.

With a young man’s passion for his first car, Snider was restoring a 1967 Dodge Dart, tinkering with the engine, giving the car a new paint job and pin stripe, tinting the windows, installing air shocks and new tires.

The job with Arco marked his big step into adulthood.

Encouraged His Son

Terry Snider said his son’s duties included taking unit readings, starting and stopping processes and learning all about the refinery unit. He had encouraged his son to enter the field, citing the steady work and good pay, and Steve planned to make it his life’s work, his father said. “He loved it. He really enjoyed the work.”

Funeral services for Snider will be at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the chapel of the Westminster Memorial Park.

Sue Godbout, a friend of the family who received the official notice of Steve’s death and informed his parents, said: “He was a kid that comes once in a lifetime. He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t swear. He loved to bring his mother little presents all the time.”

Steve was planning to move into his own apartment in January, but he had not forgotten his mother. “He had bought her a Christmas present. He told her it is something she had been wanting for years,” Godbout said. The package has not yet been opened.

Although funeral services for Booth are still not scheduled--the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office is awaiting final confirmation, through chest X-rays, of his identity; his friends at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1622 in Lomita have already begun volunteering for the rites.

Nine Step Forward

“Anybody who would like to be a pallbearer for Lou Booth, please give name to bartender,” says a sign above the VFW bar, where Booth often occupied the corner stool and ordered a Budweiser.

The sign went up Friday. As of Saturday, nine had stepped forward, said Andy Kingsland, post manager.

Kingsland remembers what Booth said the night before he died: “If I make nine more days, I’ve got it made. I hope I can make it.”

“He had a premonition,” Kingsland believes.

Booth feared death by fire more than any other way of dying, according to friends. He had been badly burned in a car accident about seven years ago.

Remembered as Nice Guy

At the VFW hall, Booth was remembered Saturday as “one of the nicest guys you would ever want to meet . . . always willing to help out any way he could. Lou always kidded around a lot, but if he knew you were in trouble, he would help you,” Kingsland said.

A Korean War veteran and life member of VFW Post 1622, Booth also belonged to the Elks and the American Legion. As a hobby he bought, fixed up and resold cars. He was working on four at the time of his death.