Mission Viejo : Hundreds Join in a Loving Tribute to Rhett Bushong, Crash Victim

Nearly 600 friends and relatives packed the Performing Arts Theatre at Mission Viejo High School on Monday to remember 1986 graduate Rhett Bushong, a victim of last week’s Northwest Airlines crash in Detroit.

“Even though Rhett has been taken from us, the things we remember about him can never be stolen,” said Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Valley Community Church, which Bushong attended.

Warren assured the 19-year-old’s relatives, classmates, coaches, teachers and fellow athletes--many of whom wept openly during the 30-minute ceremony--that death for Bushong was “a transfer and a promotion to better things.”

Bushong was to attend Saddleback College this fall and play on its football team. It was his eagerness to return home early from a family reunion in Toledo, Ohio, for the first day of football practice that placed him on the ill-fated flight Aug. 16.

His father, Reid Bushong, put a comforting arm around his wife, Jean, as they and their sons, Joel and Penn, listened to the pastor speak of Rhett’s faith in God.

“Rhett was a different kind of guy,” said Warren, standing at a podium surrounded by flowers and plants with ribbons of red and gold, school colors of Mission Viejo High School and Saddleback College.

“While other kids watched TV, he was sitting on his bed reading the Bible. . . . We’re going to miss Rhett very dearly, and his influence is obvious by the hundreds and hundreds of people here today.”

After the service, friends stood on the lawn outside the theater and released balloons into the air. Some held individual balloons; others grasped an arc of red and gold balloons attached to a painted sign that read: “Rhett lives with us all.”

On the count of three, the balloons were released. “Here you go, Rhett,” a friend called as the balloons ascended into the clear afternoon sky.

While at Mission Viejo High School, Bushong was on the football and wrestling teams and was a pole vaulter on the track and field team. He took a year off from school and had recently decided to study sports medicine, his father said last week.

In the the Performing Arts Theatre foyer, friends displayed a snapshot collage of the freckled redhead--some from early childhood days with his family, and other more recent photographs of him water-skiing.

While the rest of his family had stayed behind in Toledo that Sunday, Rhett Bushong was scheduled to take a Continental Airlines flight from Detroit to John Wayne Airport in Orange County. But when the Continental flight was delayed, he transferred to Northwest’s Flight 255, which crashed on takeoff.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the Rhett Bushong Memorial Fund can write the Saddleback Valley Community Church, 24194 Alicia Parkway, Suite M, Mission Viejo, Calif., 92691, or Athletes in Action, 4790 Irvine Blvd., Irvine, Calif. 92720.