[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 66 (Thursday, May 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5345-S5346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO GENE E. HUCKSTEP

 Mr. BOND. Mr. President, a very popular Sunday night 
television show, entitled, ``Touched by an Angel'' focuses on stories 
where people's lives have been affected in a positive way by angels who 
are sent from Heaven to serve among us.

[[Page S5346]]

  I rise today to pay tribute and honor a very dear friend who might 
just qualify as one of those angels that serves to minister to his 
fellow man.
  This past week, a former Presiding Commissioner of Cape Girardeau 
County, Gene Huckstep, completed his successful service on Earth just 
before reaching his 70th birthday.
  Gene Huckstep was widely loved and universally respected, but he was 
at first appearance not one you would figure to be an angel. Gene was a 
powerfully-built man who could be as rough as he needed to be. He 
laughingly told stories about his educational career, which at times 
bordered on juvenile delinquency. He was sent in the military to shape 
up.
  Then, in a career fueled with brushes with death, by his calculation 
he used up about 39 lives. In the Army as a tank driver he once was 
badly burned when the tank caught fire when it was being refueled, and 
another time when his tank went into water 25 feet deep he barely 
escaped drowning.
  After his service career he returned to his native Cape Girardeau and 
saw death and destruction first-hand when the May 21, 1949 tornado 
struck. After taking a baby from the hands of a dying man impaled on a 
two-by-four, he searched for other survivors and fell into a cellar 
fracturing three vertebrae and leaving him in a body cast from hip to 
neck.
  His outstanding service to his fellow man began in 1965 when his 
family-owned body shop bought a gas-powered saw which led law 
enforcement agencies to begin to call on Gene to rescue victims in 
serious car accidents.
  He faced many life and death situations cutting people out of burning 
automobiles to save their lives; in some cases losing the battle to 
flames before he could extricate them.
  One time he was trying to retrieve a drowning victim when friends on 
the bank saw swarms of cottonmouth water moccasins coming toward him. 
They pulled him out with a grappling hook that saved him from 
potentially fatal snake bites.
  Over his career in 22 years he personally extricated victims from 
1,976 serious car accidents. For these victims and their families, Gene 
Huckstep truly was an angel.
  His service to mankind continued well beyond his extrication 
business. In 1978 he was elected Presiding Commissioner of Cape 
Girardeau County with strong bipartisan support and led the way on many 
improvements in the county including a new jail, a veterans home, and 
many other worthwhile benefits.
  In the private sector he led the drive for a new emergency room at 
St. Francis Hospital, and he served as Chairman of the Board of Cameron 
Mutual Insurance Company.
  His specific charitable contributions are far too many to recount, 
but it is safe to say he left his community a far better place because 
he touched so many things for the good of the community and his fellow 
man.
  As one who was blessed by his friendship as well as his political 
support, I shall always remember his generosity, his good humor, and 
his genuine concern for others. Our thoughts and prayers are with his 
lovely wife Betty, his family, and his many close friends. I shall 
always treasure his memory and the fact that he was spared from 
dangerous situations so many times to carry on his work among the 
people of southeast Missouri.

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