Menu
On Saturday, September 28, 1968, five Enterprise High School senior girls were en route to Susanville for a football game at Lassen High. The driver of the car was a 19 year-old friend of one of the girls. Three of the girls were cheerleaders/song leaders for the school, one was the Hornet mascot, and one was involved in student government.
Not far from Susanville, the driver passed a Ford Bronco at a high rate of speed, saw an oncoming logging truck, veered back into his lane, where his right wheels hit a roadside berm and he overcorrected into the path of the logging truck. According to CHP, the combined speed of the two vehicles was in the neighborhood of 125 mph. All five seniors and the car’s driver were killed instantly, and the logging truck driver suffered serious injury. The Enterprise Community mourned. Several thousand attended funeral services in the EHS gym.
After our senior year, the class chose to build a memorial fountain in memory of the girls. Twenty years later, led by classmates, it was determined that the fountain needed refurbishing, and it was rebuilt. Both these efforts included support from the members of the class and community. At the fifty year reunion of the class, several class members expressed concern about the maintenance and condition of the fountain. Two class members and a brother of one of the girls began the process of planning a second rebuild of the fountain. We were astonished about how many EHS grads had no idea that there was a memorial fountain on campus. During that time, we also decided to develop scholarships in honor of the girls. Additionally, we began to create a video that told the story and could serve as a catalyst for curriculum – which we are now working on with the school.
Since our inception in 2021, our group has been meeting regularly at Enterprise High, developing our plans to rebuild the fountain, award scholarships and create curriculum at the school. We have publicized our efforts through local media, met with and presented to community groups, written grant applications and have shared our information and materials at school and community events. We are especially indebted to Pat Corey at McHale’s Signs, Deven Carter at Nichols, Mehlburg and Rossetto, John Martin Streeby, Mike Lander Landscaping, Boundary Waters, JF Shea, Tom Allen of Guiton’s Pool and several others who have helped us move forward. We have joined forces with Impact Teen Drivers in Sacramento, a nationally recognized organization with goals parallel to ours. We are fundraising by selling bricks, t-shirts and bumper stickers and have had contributions from the families, alumni and the community totaling $60,000.00 to date. In addition to awarding scholarships and developing curriculum, our primary goal is to create a memorial in a manner that every EHS student will know and understand the story. Our goals include continuing to award more scholarships in the girls’ names, and introduce curriculum in the fall. We invite all community members to join us! We have recently purchased and installed an outdoor tv for the area, have received the 5 plaques, and the memorial sculpture which will replace the fountain has been built by John Martin-Streeby.
Rod Tessier graduated from Enterprise High School in 1971. He was born and raised and still lives in Redding with his wife Lori. He was a sophomore when the girls were killed in the car crash on September 28th, 1968. He remembers it really affected the whole student body, and is grateful for the opportunity to help with the Remember the 5 Group in getting information to the students of today so that no one will have to die so needlessly in a car crash due to distracted driving. Rod likes giving back to the community and was on the Board of Kool April Nites for many years. In his spare time Rod works on his 31 Model A and likes going to car shows.
Steve is an Enterprise High Class of 1969 graduate. After 45 years teaching high school, he retired. With classmate Ed Sandberg and Shelley Roberts brother Scott, he began this project in 2019. In his free time, Steve is still coaching at West Valley High, and enjoys managing the yard of his childhood home on Wilshire Drive where he lives with his wife Jolie and children Bryce and Molly. He is very excited about the opportunity “Remember the 5” has to make a difference in the lives of high school students.
Carol is a Shasta High School grad class of “74”. She worked 30+ years in the education field. She retired in 2020 from Shasta County Office Of Education. She was married to Curt Maddox until his passing, with two children, and five grandchildren. Carol is very committed to the goals of Remember The Five, the foremost being to “ Save One Life”.
Curt was born in Glendale, CA in 1955. The family moved to Redding in 1965. After graduating from Enterprise in 1973, he enrolled at Sac State, where he completed 3 degrees and 2 teaching credentials. Curt was a teacher for 10 years, later moving on from teaching to become a small business owner. He retired in 2020. Curt, with his wife Carol, was the proud father of two children and grandfather to five. Curt was a founding member of our RT5 project, and served as an inspiration to all of us. He was dedicated to the idea that his efforts could affect change that would save one life. Curt Maddox passed away on November 19, 2022.
After graduation from EHS, he attended UC San Diego and later UC Berkeley, graduating with a BS in Psychology. After working as a group parent at a home treatment center for behaviorally disturbed children in Modesto, he decided to return to college for a Master’s degree. He graduated from San Diego State in 1978 with his degree in Clinical Psychology. He completed his Master’s thesis while working as a logger in Oak Run, CA. Once final graduation was granted, he worked at Shasta College, giving aptitude tests to incoming students. After completing an internship at Shasta County Mental Health, he worked at 2 home treatment centers for teenagers. In 1980, he accepted a job at a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor, continuing that until 1998, when legislative changes ended this field in California. He worked as a Vocational expert on many civil and Worker’s Compensation cases in the Shasta County area. In 1998, he went to work as a Vocational Case Manager until retirement in 2019, after working for several insurance carriers (the job and office were the same, just the carriers changed). He’s a ham radio operator, a mountain biker, and a member of the Remember The Five committee.
Gherald graduated from Enterprise in 1969 – a classmate of the 5 girls. After high school he spent four years in the Navy and has spent much of his life working in home centers and hardware stores in the northstate. He is always proud to be a Hornet.
Tonya Waterman has proudly been a part of the Hornet family at her Alma Mater, Enterprise High School where she has developed and maintained an EHS community store for staff and students.
Raising two sons and a daughter, (Easton 25, Peyton 23, Averi 21) and being married to her best friend for over 26 years, instilled in her a certain courage and fortitude, mixed with humor and wisdom, which she offers to others generously.
As an active community member and a humanitarian, Tonya’s gift of giving back is the foundation she and her husband have raised their children on. Helping others gives her gratification that drives her to satisfaction! She is an active member of several EHS clubs and has shared guided principles, building bridges between the gaps of the student body and staff members.
Tonya is articulate yet refreshingly candid, a consummate communicator, eminently accessible and absolutely dedicated to not only meeting but far exceeding all expectations.
We will promote a program of curriculum, scholarship and community connections that provides high school students with tools and resources to make wise life decisions throughout their lives.
We will help build and maintain a culture that Remembers the Five and strives to save one life. Through student-centered curriculum and scholarship, through engagement with the community, and through a collaborative relationship with Enterprise High School, the Shasta Union High School District and the Shasta County Superintendent of Schools, we will design, create and promote exemplary safe-driving messages which save lives.
