CEDAR COUNTY, NEBRASKA - OBITUARY OF RAY KLOPPING ==================================================================== NEGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. This file was contributed for use in the NEGenWeb Archives by Carol Tramp Permission granted by: Rob Dump, Editor, Cedar County News ====================================================================== CEDAR COUNTY NEWS JUNE 28, 1923 LIGHTNING KILLS A WYNOT FARMER RAY KLOPPING, 19, SON OF MR. AND MRS. KLOPPING MEETS SUDDEN DEATH BOTH HIT BY BOLT, SECOND BOLT KILLS THE HORSE ALSO KILLED AND THE HAY WAGON AND RACK BURNED UP FOLLOWING ACCIDENT, THE YOUNG MAN WAS KILLED BY A SECOND BOLT Ray Klopping, 19, son of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Klopping, widely known farmers, residing just northwest of Wynot was instantly killed by a bolt of lightning while on a hay wagon on his father's farm during an electrical storm which swept over this section Tuesday evening. The young man was throwing hay from a wagon to the stack, his father being on the stack in the yard. A bolt of lightning shocked them so badly that they were thrown down and the team ran away with the wagon. Young Klopping recovered from the first shock and ran about 20 rods after them, catching them in a corn field. He stopped the team, and adjusted the harness and lines and was just about to start back toward the barn when the second bolt flashed thru the sky and struck him, killing him instantly. One horse was also killed and the other stunned, the electricity also setting fire to the hay rack and wagon. Mrs. Klopping ran to the scene and rescued the body of the young man and then released the second horse, before the fire harmed either. The clothing of the young man was cut into long shreds by the force of the lightning, but the body was marked but little. The young man was widely known and highly esteemed because of his manly character and promising future, and his sudden death was a painful shock to his many friends as well as his friends and acquaintances of his parents who are amongst the best known residents of that section. his death was doubly hard as he was the only living child, his only sister Miss Alice Klopping having died last spring at the age of 22, following an attack of spinal meningitus, from all over the county messages of sincere sympathy are being sent to the parents. A second unusually severe electrical storm, visited the Wynot vicinity Wednesday morning, quite a bit of damage being done. T.E. Jones mill was on the receiving end of one bolt of lightning, a large tree was struck in Homewood park, a telphone pole near the Ferber residence was shattered by lightning, and other places also suffered to some extent. Ignatz Arens, who is building a new set of buildings east of Fordyce, was stunned by lightning which struck the new house on which he was working. Fortunately, the bolt was not "hot" lightning, so that a fire did not result tho some of the shingles which were knocked from the roof were scorched.