OUR VIEW: Death points to problems with Route 3

Staff Editorial
Published: September 5, 2008

» SUMMARY: The death of Kelsey Orndorff is a tragic loss of a young woman who still had much to contribute to our community; Route 3 problems need to be addressed.

Those who knew Kelsey Orndorff spoke of her amazing spirit and her love of the Lord; a Lord who called her to be with him Aug. 29.

Her father, Pastor Randy Ordnorff, is well known in Culpeper for his compassion and kindness. Now, his family needs that same compassion as they work through a tragic loss.

Kelsey was a bright star in our community — a pastor’s daughter who two days after her death was to have given her first sermon during a mission program at Culpeper United Methodist Church. She cared not for herself, but for strangers — the poor, the homeless, the suffering.

On the night of her death she was headed to Fredericksburg to praise the Lord at a Christian concert featuring recording artist Chris Sligh.

It was on the way to the concert that she was taken too early to be with her savior, on a stretch of Route 3 that has claimed many lives, both young and old, over the years.

Let’s not let Kelsey’s death be in vain, but rather make it an opportunity for the Virginia Department of Transportation to revisit that deadly area and find a way to make it safer.

VDOT has said it reviews road safety records after every fatality, so it knows how often those occur on Route 3. But now is the time to make an adjustment, to save more lives before they are lost.

We understand VDOT will be widening the road in 2014, but that’s still six years away. We hope it is able to improve the quality of the road in some way before that too-distant date.

And as Kelsey would have us do, let us not forget Dr. J. Byron Cook, who was the driver of the vehicle that collided with Kelsey’s. We wish for him to have a speedy recovery and to return to his practice at Commonwealth Medical.

We hope you keep the Orndorff and Cook families in your thoughts and prayers; they’ll be in ours. She will be missed.