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Published on Saturday, October 16, 2004
in the Lake City Reporter
Standing on the shoulder of Sisters Welcome Road, Eileen Powell looked at the bouquets of flowers, the cross and the name Sgt. Andy Brown. She remembered the "most special man on the planet."
Powell visits the site where her fiancé died five months ago. She visits the area several times a week and has set up a roadside memorial for him. Brown, who was a sergeant with the Florida Highway Patrol, died April 27 at the age of 55 after he crashed into a tree during a high-speed chase on Sisters Welcome Road.
Because Brown has no relatives in the area, Powell took it upon herself to start a memorial. He died six weeks before their wedding day.
What started out with the flowers from the funeral has grown into a large memorial that includes several artificial flower bouquets of various colors, two crosses, one solar-lighted, and a park bench.
"Whatever I run across that I think might look nice," Powell, a lieutenant with FHP, said. "I have no idea what I'm going to end up with."
Most of the flowers at the memorial are artificial but occasionally she brings real flowers and places them near the tree his car hit.
"Those are kind of personal because he died at the tree," she said.
Powell didn't seek permission before setting up the memorial on the county road and is not sure if it is allowed.
The county does have a policy to place "Drive Safely" markers at the site of wrecks on county roads upon the request from the family of the deceased. They have received four requests, but numerous unauthorized memorials also exist.
"It's a place I can go," she said. "Because he was cremated, I don't have a grave site to go to."
Along with Powell, several of his friends and colleagues come to the site throughout the week to talk or visit.
"He would listen to everybody's problems while he was alive, so I think when they have a problem they just come here and talk to him," she said.
She said having the memorial and having to drive by it every day to work probably makes it harder to move on.
"But I'm not ready to move on," she added.