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WB graduate Rhoads killed in foggy crash
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · March 19, 2015


A West Branch High School graduate who went into law enforcement died on the job in Kentucky earlier this month.


Burke Jevon Rhoads, 35, graduated from WBHS in 1997 and died in a multi-vehicle accident on March 11 in Garrard County, Ky., while driving to a training course at Eastern Kentucky University.

Tim Moss, a classmate of Rhoads, called him a “glass half-full kind of guy.”

“He was always optimistic,” Moss said. “Everybody liked him.”

Moss remembers Rhoads and him playing in the band — Moss played saxophone, Rhoads played trumpet — and both of them also performing in Charlotte’s Web, a play put on by the theater department. He said Rhoads also joined the Boy Scouts and remembers him entering the U.S. Army not long after graduation.

“He dedicated his life to serving,” Moss said.

According to information from Nicholasville Police Department, where he served as an officer, Rhoads was driving in the fog near the intersection of U.S. 27 and Rogers Road just after 7 a.m. when another vehicle turned in front of his patrol car. That collision spun the patrol car around and into oncoming traffic, where Rhoads’ car was hit a second time from the rear.

Rhoads was taken by ambulance to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital where he died from his injuries a short time later, according to NPD information.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that state Rep. Russ Meyer, a former Nicholasville mayor, visited the hospital about 8:30 a.m. and found about 30 police officers there expressing their condolences.

“He always met you with a smile and a hug,” Meyer told the Herald-Leader. “He was just a team player. He didn’t overshadow anybody and didn’t want to.”

The Jessamine (County) Journal posted a video of a press conference later in the day of the crash, where NPD Sgt. Scott Harvey said Rhoads was a reliable police officer.

“Burke was the same guy at work as he was at home,” Harvey said. “We could all take a lesson from that.”

Harvey said Rhoads’ death was the first line-of-duty death in the NPD since 1941. Nicholasville, a city of about 28,000, is less than 10 miles south of Lexington, Ky.

He served for six years with the NPD.

Rhoads left behind a wife, daughter and two sons. The family lived in Sugar Creek Pike, Ky.

While attending WBHS, he also participated in FFA and golf.