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A funeral will be held Saturday at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Cleveland for Lakeina Monique Francis, one of 17 sailors killed in the Oct. 12 bombing of the USS Cole.
The funeral will take place at 11 a.m. Burial will follow in Salisbury National Cemetery, according to the Rev. Mack Jarvis, the church’s pastor.
A memorial service will follow at the Salisbury Civic Center from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Organizers expect as many as 500 people, including military officers and football players from West Rowan High School. Francis’ brothers, James and David, play football for West Rowan High.
A college scholarship fund also has been established for Francis’ brothers.
Donations can be made at any Bank of America branch in the name of the Lakeina M.Francis Memorial Scholarship Fund. The fund will be managed by Francis’ surviving family members. The law firm of Hancock & Hundley will be the trustee.
Francis, 19, a Navy mess management specialist, died when a bomb ripped a hole in the hull of the USS Cole. The destroyer was refueling in a port on the coast of Yemen when the explosion happened.
Francis’ body remained at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Del., this morning for an autopsy.
Gwen Plummer, a neighbor, said Francis’ parents remained hopeful that she might still be alive even after the Navy was reporting her as “presumed dead.”
“They kept hoping even to the last minute that they would find her in some part of that ship,” said Gwen Plummer, a neighbor and friend of the family. “They really didn’t know what to say until the very last moment.”
A memorial service for the deceased sailors was held in Norfolk, Va., last week.
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