CCHS friends rally around classmate

Alicia Woods Stadler has spent most of her waking moments reaching out to the community to help a classmate who died unexpectedly earlier this month.

Stadler, who graduated from Churchill County High School in 1990, was shocked when she learned one of her best friends from their Greenwave days died in her car, slumped over the steering wheel, in a Walmart parking lot in Somerset, Ky.

Stadler said she wants to help Carolann Ketten’s family with funeral expenses and to assist her four children. Although both ladies lived 2,000 miles apart, their bonds were still as strong as they when they first entered school.

“In elementary school is where it all started off,” Stadler said, adding they first met each other in kindergarten.

They moved up together, class by class, until they graduated from CCHS. Ketten then moved to Kentucky where she raised a family and enjoyed the solitude of the Blue Grass State. Occasionally, she would return to Fallon to see her parents and visit with friends.

For the past several weeks, Stadler has been organizing fundraising events, and with the help of the community, a dinner, bake sale and raffle are scheduled for March 29 at Jerry’s Restaurant.

Stadler said Jerry’s will donate 10 percent of each meal purchased between 2-9 p.m. She added this will be a good time for Ketten’s friends and classmates to attend the fundraisers and share their stories.

“I have set this up because so many people wanted to help but didn’t know what they can do,” Stadler stated in Facebook messages. “This will go directly to her children to help with arrangements to put Carolann to rest, so her family can have the time they need to grieve instead of stressing because of finances.”

Stadler said Ketten was also the type of person who would help anyone.

“Carolann’s big heart would have done this for any one of us, so let’s make her proud and help out with what you can,” Stadler added.

So, far a recent bake sale raised $400, and people have donated $1,600 through a website called FundRazr (https://fundrazr.com/find?search=ketten). She said the website will be active through March 30. During the dinner, she said raffle tickets will be sold for donated gifts including a custom cake baked by Kristina (Lorentzen) DuMond.

The drive to assist Ketten is also personal for Stadler, who recently lost her husband.

“I jumped on board,” Stadler explained, because just losing my husband, I didn’t want them to worry about finances. They (the children) are too young to deal with that.”