fbpx

|

Paul Henson YMCA community mourning loss of Clay Miller, lifeguard killed in Missouri wreck

Share this story:

Clay Miller died Saturday in a car wreck that also took the life of driver Mark Harken, a recent SM East graduate.
Clay Miller died Saturday in a car wreck that also took the life of driver Mark Harken, a recent SM East graduate.

Members of the Paul Henson YMCA community this week are mourning the loss of Clay Miller, 18, who died in the rural Missouri automobile accident that killed 2012 SM East graduate Mark Harken and injured four of their friends.

Miller was a well-liked lifeguard at the Paul Henson YMCA pool, where he had worked since October 2013.

“He was a good kid who always picked up extra shifts,” said Paul Henson YMCA executive director Ashley Wohlgemuth. “He even worked here on the Fourth of July when practically every lifeguard wanted the holiday off.”

Miller had just graduated from Lincoln College Preparatory Academy in Kansas City, Mo., and was preparing to take time off to do mission work in Argentina before attending college. He sent a message to friends and family last month in hopes to raising funds for the mission work:

Between lifeguarding for a living, fostering adorable and helpless kittens, and donating bone marrow to a blood cancer patient I found out about through a St. Peter’s parish drive, I’ve been pretty busy with this whole “nice guy” act. And now I want to do more!

“He was a good, quiet kid that will be deeply missed,” Wohlgemuth said. “As one member put it this morning, ‘He took his job very seriously!'”

Miller had a brother, Cole, who attends Bishop Miege.

About the author

Jay Senter
Jay Senter

Jay Senter is the founder and publisher of the Post.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in business at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where he worked as a reporter and editor at The Badger Herald.

He went on to receive a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas, where he earned the Calder Pickett Award. While he was in graduate school, he also worked as a reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World.

LATEST HEADLINES