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Karli Rose Kell, 17, of Rock Island died Saturday, Oct. 19, 2002, as the result of injuries received in an automobile accident near Andalusia.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday at St. Pius X
Catholic Church, Rock Island. Private burial will be held at
a later time in Chippiannock Cemetery, Rock Island.
Visitation is 3-7 p.m. Tuesday at Wheelan Funeral Home, Rock Island.
The family requests that any memorials made in Karli's name be given as a
donation to: RIMA (Rock Island Music Association), c/o Rock Island
High School, 1400 25th Ave., Rock Island, IL 61201.
Karli was born Feb. 20, 1985, in Moline, the daughter of Ellis and Kristi
Swanson Kell. She was a senior at Rock Island High School, Class of
2003, and was employed by Millward Brown, Rock Island.
Karli was a member of the Rock Island High School Student Senate,
Chamber Singers, Symphonic Choir, Letterman's Club, Key Club and
Spanish Club. She was a member of the high school's yearbook and
newspaper staffs and had been active in the school's musical and drama
productions.
Karli was a member of ROCK group (sponsored by Youth for Christ) at the high
school and the Trinity Episcopal Church Youth Group, Rock Island. She
was a former cheerleader at Rocky.
Survivors include her parents, Ellis and Kristi, Rock Island; a sister, Ali
Christine Kell, at home; grandparents, Ed and Bonnie Swanson, Holliday,
Fla., and Rose Kell, Rock Island; great-grandparents, Glenn and Jerry
Norton, Holliday; aunts, Terri Jones and her family, Omaha, Neb., and
Lisa Gotthardt and her family, Moline; and many many special friends.
A scholarship has been established in her name. For
more information, please write to the Rock Island Music Association, (RIMA), at
P.O. Box 5111, Rock Island, IL 61204-5111.
Click on Karli's picture for an enlargement.
Click on the title to read a newspaper article:
Karli Rose Kell Scholarships handed out
Karli Kell's death brings out best in teens
God had a plan for her
Lean on me
Even the moon smiles on Karli Kell
Karli Kell Scholarship winners stand with the Kell family.
Back row: Left to right Erin Kleiber, Kristi Kell, Ellis Kell and Kevin Snell.
Front row: Emily Coussens, Ali Kell, and Katherine Hardacre.
(Diane Cebula / Dispatch/Argus staff)
Karli Rose Kell Scholarships handed out
By Julie Jensen - Correspondent
May 2003, The Dispatch & The Rock Island Argus
The $1,500 scholarships were awarded at Rock Island High School's Pops Concert in May, and Karli Rose's mother, Kristi Kell, said, "It was wonderful to be able to help the kids out, and it's important that friends, family and the community know that we could do this in Karli's name because of their support.
"The winners were Karli's friends, and they were thrilled. Karli loved music and loved to sing, and we know she would be pleased."
The winners were Emily Coussens, who plans to attend Gustavus Adolphus College and major in theater with an emphasis on musical theater; Katherine Hardacre, who will study leadership and secondary education at Indiana Wesleyan University; Kevin Snell, who will major in music and music education at Illinois State University; and Erin Kleiber, who will study music business at Bradley University.
Ms. Coussens said, "Throughout the years I knew Karli and shared her passion for music; she was not only someone I considered a close friend, but also someone for me to look up to and admire as a musician. I would be humbled to be considered in the same caliber as Karli."
Ms. Hardacre wants to be a teacher, and as such, she said, "I want to be a mother to the motherless, a friend to the friendless, a counselor to the confused. I want to help students grow as a whole person."
Kevin Snell, who sang "Desperado" at Karli's funeral, said, `That was the hardest thing I have ever done. I do not remember exactly when I met Karli, but I remember the day we lost her. When I saw the way the students of Rock Island acted towards each other during their time of need, I was astounded. I realized that I wanted to be a teacher that day. I owe that to Karli.
Erin Kleiber said, "With this scholarship I can further my music education, hoping to share my passion for music with others in as many ways as I can. I would like to manage a band or an entertainment facility like The Mark."
All of them have a list of credentials as long as your arm in both vocal and instrumental music. So did Karli Rose Kell.
The money for the scholarships, $6,000 this year, came from memorials made to Karli and from a moon dance. Why a moon theme?
Ellis Kell said, "I stood in our driveway by myself, staring up at the moon, just asking God to let Karli say a few last words to me -- anything. As plain as the nose on my face, there was Karli's face in the moon -- as God is my witness, I swear.
"I didn't say a word to anyone. I figured everyone would think I had snapped under pressure, so I wasn't going to mention it. However, before I could say anything, Ali (Karli's sister) came in and sat down beside me and calmly said, `Dad, I saw Karli's face in the moon.' I almost fell out of my chair."
Two other friends reported similar sightings in the full harvest moon, and that's why they put on a moon dance to raise money for the Rock Island Music Association last November.
"We're going to make this an annual event to raise scholarship money," Mr. Kell said. "This year it will be at the Col on Friday, Oct. 10, the night of the hunter's moon."
Take a look at that full moon. Perhaps you'll see Karli Rose Kell's contagious smile.
Karli Kell's death brings out best in teens
Sunday, October 27, 2002 DISPATCH & ARGUS
Teenagers in Rock Island grew up fast this week. Life sometimes has a way of doing that to you.
The tragic death of Karli Kell ripped at the fabric of the community and touched many people. Karli's friends from Rock Island High School and elsewhere responded in many different ways.
Hundreds of students waited in line in the cold for over an hour just to get into the funeral home for the visitation. They turned out again for her funeral Wednesday. It was an outpouring of love, respect and compassion that I have not witnessed during the years I've lived in Rock Island.
I'm so proud that it came from our teenagers.
Sure, there were many adults there too. The Kells, after all, are a Rock Island family. Ellis Kell, Karli's father, has entertained tens of thousands of people at hundreds of events during his well-chronicled blues music career. I'll bet there hasn't been a cause that came to Ellis for help, for which he didn't pull his guitar out of the case and hold a benefit concert. I've known him for years in his various positions with The Dispatch, Rock Island Argus and The Leader -- and currently at Quad-Cities Online. He's a wonderful, talented, gentle, giving giant.
But it was love for his daughter that drew so many out into the cold to express their grief in public. Karli was involved in Student Senate, Chamber Singers, Symphonic Choir, Letterman's Club, Key Club, Spanish Club and theater productions at Rocky. She was on the staff of the yearbook and newspaper, had been a cheerleader, played softball, was active in her church's youth group.
The hundreds who turned out to honor her memory represented all of these groups and more. Ask anyone and they will tell you that all along the way she made friends with her contagious smile.
It would have been so easy for her friends to find excuses why they couldn't attend her visitation or funeral. Such a loss, and the grief that comes with it, are not easy to face. I'm sure that many of these kids have never felt such a loss before.
But none took the easy way out. Each honored her memory in their own way. Some sobbed, while others stepped forward to comfort them. Some remembered her with silence and a tear, while others laughed while recalling the fun they had shared.
In these days following the terror of September 11, I think everyone feels less secure; more vulnerable. Coming together is a good way to deal with those feelings. To the credit of all, they stepped to the plate and shared their grief together. It was a fitting tribute to a young lady who would have been leading the crowd had it been someone else who had died.
Her parents, Ellis and Kristi, have lived through the greatest fear any parent can ever have. We all share their pain but can never truly understand how deep it goes. Selfishly, we hope we will never know.
For those who are looking for the answer to the ultimate question -- Why? -- you won't find it here. My only answer is that "life happens." It's no one's fault.
I hope the teens who were luckier and survived the two auto accidents that evening, and the many other friends who could have easily been with Karli, understand the special gift they have been given. They have another chance to do something really special with their lives.
Don't look back and wonder why. Look ahead and ask why not. Chase your dream. Make a difference. You are special and have an advantage others don't -- you now have a guardian angel.
Along the way be sure to enjoy life as Karli did. Get up early to watch the sun rise. Stop along the road to smell the flowers. And dance by the light of the moon.
Roger Ruthhart is managing editor of The Rock Island Argus.
God had a plan for her
October 24, 2002 DISPATCH/ARGUS
By Marc Nesseler, Dispatch/Argus sports editor
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow.
It hurt for the Rock Island High School chamber choir to get through that song by The Eagles at the funeral service Wednesday afternoon for Karli Kell, their 17-year-old classmate and fellow choir member who died in an auto accident Saturday night near Andalusia.
In fact, for the couple of days prior, they and their choral director, Dorothy McNamer, wondered aloud if they would be able. After all, each time they'd try, they couldn't, likely picturing Karli belting out the opening solo of "Desperado" at a choir event just last year. As Neil Diamond once penned, it's hard to sing with a cry in your voice.
"It was the most difficult thing I've ever been through," Ms. McNamer said after Wednesday's funeral at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Rock Island.
Senior singer Kevin Snell, bearing a white rose that starkly contrasted his reddened eyes, confessed he couldn't make it through. He admitted to having to resort to mouthing the words, counting on his fellow choir members to carry the song. They did so admirably, magnificently.
Mr. Snell might have sensed the degree of difficulty when visiting the accident site earlier in the week. There, he left Karli a letter that included the following: "You leaving us has made me question everything from family to friends to religion, but in a positive way. Thank you. We had to practice Desperado in Chamber yesterday in class. Karli, that was one of the hardest things we've ever done. But I'm sure you were there with us, singing more beautiful than ever."
Steve Pressley, director of Wheelan Funeral Home, which handled the arrangements, knew of the choir's emotional warm-up attempts. "The interesting thing about kids, though," Mr. Pressley said, "is how they rise to the occasion through the years." Karli's choirmates certainly proved that.
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get
In the movie "Life As a House," actor Hayden Christensen, playing the role of a troubled, then-turned-around teen, offers some pretty heady insight -- "My dad says that everything happens for a reason." My children could say the same. I believe it, and repeat it often. Yet, it's hard to explain why a such a vibrant, caring, religious girl as Karli Kell would be taken from us at such a young age.
While the singing of Desperado was captivating, the words spoken at the podium by Karli's sister, Ali, a sophomore, were touching. And she may have pinpointed that reason. "God had a plan for her," Ali stoically said of her only sibling.
Still, we're left wondering about God's reason for that plan. Maybe it's that this is a high-school class, or even a generation, that needs slap of reality. They need to understand that they're not invincible. As teen drivers, they face challenges different from their parents. It's something as simple as knowing that cell phones and driving, which reportedly contributed to Karli's death, aren't compatible.
Or maybe it's seeing how a group can come together for a common cause. It was quite apparent at Karli's funeral, not only in the accomplishment of the choir but in the unity of her summer softball team, Ted's Boatarama, all sporting their bright red jerseys in the northern pews.
Or maybe it's that someone out of the 1,200 who packed into a church with a capacity of 1,300 got a needed introduction to religion -- though it might have been strange sitting through a Episcopal service at a Catholic institution.
According to Mr. Pressley, the funeral was held at St. Pius because Trinity Episcopal Church in Rock Island wouldn't have been able to hold all of Karli's well-wishers. "St. Pius was very gracious in letting us use their facilities," Mr. Pressley said.
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin,' but there's a rainbow about you
"You know," said Ms. McNamer, "I was OK until the very end, when they played Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was then that I lost it."
You better let somebody love you,
before it's too late.
"If anything comes out of this," added the Rocky choral director, "it's that you should go up to someone you love and tell them how much you love them." You never know; you may never get another chance. Ellis and Kristi Kell, Karli's parents, would love to have theirs.
Things happen for a reason, even though sometimes they don't make sense. It's left up to each individual to figure it out.
Marc Nesseler is the sports editor of The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus. He and Ellis Kell grew up as neighbors, as Little League competitors, and now, as Dispatch Publishing Co. co-workers.
Lean on me
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2002 QUAD CITY TIMES
By Barb Ickes
Do not doubt the children. Do not question whether your teenager can hear you through the blasting stereo or the slamming doors. You may expect their immaturity. But their wisdom might surprise you.
The awkward self-consciousness of adolescence was left at the door of the Rock Island church Wednesday. For most of the hundreds of teens who poured through the doors of St. Pius Parish, the death of Karli Kell was their first true heartbreak.
For the first time in their young lives, they could see with their own eyes the finality of death. They could feel with their own hearts the weight of loss. And they could touch with their own hands the trembling shoulders of friends who were feeling their way through the same darkness.
St. Pius´ 1,200 seating capacity overflowed. The 17-year-old´s death in a car accident Saturday had turned Rock Island High School upside-down.
And Wednesday, the children stood each other right back up.
Desperado had been Karli´s song, her solo number that almost made her a legend at Rocky. At her funeral, the school´s Chamber Singers managed, almost unbelievably, to get through it. Beautifully.
As the congregation wept, the children sang. And when they were through, they leaned on one another boys hugging boys through unashamed sobs and girls reaching out in near mobs of comfort.
But these were not helpless children. They did not need the hundreds of adults in the church to pat their heads and assure them life would go on. They saw the devastation in one another and they reached into it.
Karli´s little sister, 15-year-old Ali, mustered courage and strength that is far beyond her years. She stood at the altar in front of all those hundreds of people and, through gentle sobs, proclaimed, "Karli is in a better place."
When she talked of the two girls who had been with her sister in the car wreck, her voice cracked with sincerity: "I´m so glad you two are OK," she cried.
And we all cried with her.
For a long time after the casket had been wheeled out and the adults were in their cars in the parking lot, Karli´s friends stayed in the church. Many of them clung to each other so long that their crying turned to laughter.
"Karli," they kept saying. "Karli would have laughed at ..." or "Karli would have thought ..."
But a dark-haired boy in suspenders had not yet felt the relief of the end of services. He was not yet feeling the comfort of friendship. Tears were rolling down his face so fast, he couldn´t keep them away.
Another boy came to his side and put an arm over his shoulder. Then a girl came and put her arms around his neck.
"I know," the girl said gently.
The boy drew his sleeve across his nose and said, "It sucks."
Leaning one against the other in the center of the church, the children became the sanctuary.
Even the moon smiles on Karli Kell
October 23, 2002 DISPATCH & ARGUS
By Dustin Lemmon and Robin Youngblood, Staff writers
Karli Rose Kell's family always will see her smiling face in a full moon.
At Tuesday's visitation for the 17-year-old who died in a Saturday night car accident near Andalusia, her father, Ellis Kell, distributed a letter which said:
"Last night I stood on our driveway out back, by myself, staring up at the moon -- wishing I could ... just asking God to let Karli say a few last words to me ... anything. As plain as the nose on my face, there was Karli's face in the moon -- as God is my witness, I swear.
"I didn't say a word to anyone, but came inside to answer a few e-mails from friends. I figured everyone would think I had snapped under pressure, so I wasn't going to mention it. However, before I could say anything, Ali came in and sat down beside me and calmly said, "Dad, I just saw Karli's face in the moon." I almost fell out of my chair.
"Then, early this morning, Kim Block came over and said -- before we mentioned anything about it -- that they saw the same thing, driving back through town last night. And then, to cap it off, John O'Meara came over this morning to get a jacket he had left behind, and ... you guessed it ... the first thing he said, sobbing, was that he had seen Karli's face last night in the harvest moon.
"I almost forgot to mention, in my haste to tell you all about the miracle last night, that Ali and I quickly grabbed our coats and ran back outside together -- where we could still see Karli's face in the moon. The sky was clouding up pretty good by then, but the moon brightened for a moment, before falling back behind the passing clouds. Ali looked up at me and said, "Karli came back one last time, Dad -- just to say good night to us."
"This morning Ali came downstairs smiling, with the gift of peace and serenity that only God can provide us. We all know now that she's not gone at all -- and she never will be. She lives on in our hearts, our minds' eyes, and in the face of the moon -- now and forever."
Karli, a senior at Rock Island High School, was everyone's best friend and always did the right thing, students said Tuesday while standing in the nearly block-long line outside Wheelan Funeral Home.
"Karli is one of those people that always does things right, and tries to do the right thing," a tearful James Westmorland, who sang with Karli in school music competitions, said between hugs with friends and family.
Students crowded together, exchanging memories of Karli as they waited in line. They described her as outgoing and friendly. "She's everyone's best friend" one girl said, and "She wanted everyone to be involved," another added.
Jessica Yos, who graduated from Rocky last year, said Karli went out of her way to help others. "If you needed someone to talk to, Karli was always there."
"Karli made everybody smile," Jessica Westmorland, a Rock Island sophomore, said.
According to the Rock Island County Sheriff's Department, Karli's Pontiac Sunfire crashed into a tree just east of 77th Street West near Andalusia. Details of what caused the crash weren't available from police Tuesday.
One passenger, Jillian Spragg, 16, was treated at Trinity Medical Center, West Campus, and released Tuesday. Her sister, Stephanie Spragg, 15, was treated and released early Sunday.
"Karli was the most vibrant young lady anyone ever knew," said Mr. Kell, a well-known blues musician who works for Quad-Cities Online and writes a column for The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus. "She would do anything she could for one of her friends."
He said his daughter had a "contagious" smile that made others smile, too.
A long line of people were waiting to pay their respects 20 minutes before Tuesday's visitation began. The funeral home was filled with flowers, photos and a scrapbook of Karli's life.
Many of those same people will be at Karli's funeral today at 1 p.m. at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Rock Island. A private burial is planned in Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island.
Rock Island High School counselor Cyndy Lukasik said Karli's death has been hard on students. "You have very close friends and then those who are upset that have lost a classmate. There's not much you can tell them. You can't explain why this has happened."
She said the school district's crisis team, a group of counselors assigned to deal with traumatic events, is talking with students at the school this week.
"I was almost awed in the manner they (counselors) were able to deal with the situation," Ms. Lukasik said. "I was truly impressed. They were compassionate, composed, very human, but very much knowing what their role was."
"It's a difficult situation for our students to deal with right now," Rocky principal Dawn Snyder said, adding that she and vice principal Gary Flecker attended the visitation.
"She (Karli) was such a positive person," Ms. Lukasik said. "You could not be around this child and not be affected by her."
Karli, a former Rocky cheerleader, was involved in many groups at the high school. She was a member of the Student Senate, Chamber Singers, Symphonic Choir, Letterman's Club, Key Club, Spanish Club, theater productions and on the school's yearbook and newspaper staffs.
She was a member of the high school's ROCK group (sponsored by Youth for Christ) and belonged to the Trinity Episcopal Church Youth Group in Rock Island.
Additional survivors include her mother, Kristi; grandparents, Ed and Bonnie Swanson, Holliday, Fla., and Rose Kell, Rock Island; and great-grandparents, Glenn and Jerry Norton, Holliday.
The main goal of the Rock Island Music Association
is to support the music programs of all Rock Island - Milan Schools.
© Copyright 2007 Rock Island Music Association, All rights reserved.