PARKERSBURG, Iowa – Not far from the cornfields, in the cool of the morning, Gary Hinders stood waist-deep in a grave. He held a shovel, just like the other four men who took turns digging, first through a foot-and-a-half layer of black dirt, then a mix of sand and clay and finally the stubborn hardpan.
Hinders paused.
“Never thought I’d be digging this one,” he said.
“Not in a million years,” one of the other men said.
“At least not for this reason,” added a third.
This grave was for Ed Thomas, the high school football coach who a year ago served as a driving force behind the town’s recovery from the tornado that killed nine people, demolished 288 homes and wiped out one-third of Parkersburg.