[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 189 (Tuesday, December 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S15129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO MAGGIE LAINE WEBB

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, in Moline, IL, Maggie Laine Webb 
will be buried.
  A promising career took Maggie away from Moline. Sadly, gun violence 
has brought her home.
  Maggie Webb was working at the Van Maur department store in Omaha 
last Wednesday when a 19-year-old man opened fire with an AK-47 assault 
rifle, killing eight people and wounding five more before taking his 
own life.
  Maggie Webb was the youngest of the gunman's victims. She was just 
24; she would have turned 25 in 2 weeks.
  She had transferred to Omaha from another Von Maur department store 
just 6 weeks earlier. In Omaha, Maggie was a store manager--a position 
of unusual responsibility for someone her age. But then, Maggie Webb 
was, by all accounts, an unusually responsible, talented young woman.
  At Moline High School, where she graduated in 2001, Maggie was a 
softball standout, she ran track, and she was involved in student 
council and many other activities. She went on to graduate in 2005 from 
Illinois State University.
  News of her death has hit many of her former teachers at Moline High 
School hard. Bill Burrus, the school principal, said one teacher 
remarked of Maggie, ``She was one of the good ones,'' paused, and then 
said, ``No, one of the great ones.''
  Maggie Webb is survived by her parents, Dave and Vicki Webb, of Port 
Byron, IL, and her two older sisters.
  Our thoughts, prayers, and condolences are with the Webb family and 
all of the families affected by this senseless violence.

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