A neighbor’s concern about one family’s tragedy may make a difference in the lives of other children.
While riding his bicycle on May 25, 9-year-old B.J. Lingerfelt collided with a car at Fisherman’s Lane and St. Matthew’s Church Road. He sustained serious head injuries and died five days later.
B.J. wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time, and he apparently didn’t stop for a stop sign. His parents later appealed to other parents to make their children wear helmets.
Norene Foster lives in the Fisherman’s Cove neighborhood and couldn’t stop thinking about B.J.
“I had seen the little boy. I hadn’t met him, but he lived in the neighborhood,” she said. “I just got concerned that none of the children in the neighborhood had helmets, and they didn’t know bike etiquette at all.”
So Foster, a former chairman of the Rowan County Republican Party, called the Sheriff’s Department to see if they might offer some lessons in bike safety.
Sgt. Virginia King called Foster back, and they arranged for a bicycle safety rodeo on the afternoon of July 1, a Sunday, at the Fisherman’s Cove picnic shelter. King and deputies S.A. Barnhardt, J.E. Brindle and D.W. Hatley gave the children lessons in bicycle safety.
But something else was missing. “The Sunday we did come, none of the children came with helmets,” King said. “And Mrs. Foster asked me if there was anyway we could get helmets for kids.”
King immediately thought of Tim Bost, a major in the Sheriff’s Department who also is active in the Salisbury Kiwanis Club. Earlier in the summer, the Kiwanis had helped sponsor another bike rodeo at First Presbyterian Church and given all the children helmets and warning flags to attach to their bicycles.
So King told Foster she’d talk to Bost. Sure enough, the Kiwanis Club agreed to provide helmets and safety flags to the 10 children who participated in the earlier rodeo.
On Wednesday at the picnic shelter on Lakeshore Drive, Sgt. King, Kiwanis President Pete Hoogendonk and Foster presented helmets, flags and a bicycle rodeo certificate to the children: Cameron and Jessie Whitmire; Charlie, Jessica and Anna Cox; Justin and Joshua Toath; Greg Meadows; Amber Guy and Brittany Reid.
Hoogendonk said that Bost and Sheriff George Wilhelm, also a Kiwanis member, encouraged the club to promote child safety by providing bike helmets and flags.
“We were more than happy to help” and provide helmets that can provide some protection to children if they are ever involved in a bike accident, Hoogendonk said.
Foster, a 68-year-old grandmother who has three step-grandchildren living in Arizona, said she hopes the certificates and equipment will serve as a reminder to the children and their parents that bike helmets are important and that someone cares enough to teach their children.
“I had told them the other day at the picnic shelter: ‘You know where I live and you know I will be watching. If I catch you without your helmet, I’ll give you two demerits,’ ” Foster said.
“These kids are so proud,” she added, though she and her husband, John, already caught one boy riding without his new head protection.
When her husband asked the boy if he was missing something, the boy hung his head down and said, “Yes, I know.”
Contact Frank DeLoache at 704-797-4245 or fdeloache@salisburypost.com
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