Daily Egyptian WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2016
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
Housemates remember SIU student killed in fire as hardworking, artistic BILL LUKITSCH | @lukitsbill
Friends of the SIU student killed in a house fire the day before Thanksgiving say he was preparing to head home and visit family the day he died, and remembered him as an intelligent and creative man influential to those who knew him. Alex Kierstead, a junior from Aurora studying political science and journalism, was found dead Nov. 23 after firefighters extinguished a blaze in the home he shared with three other SIU students. He was 20. “We’ve never experienced losing someone as close to us as Alex was,” said Josh Schenkenfelder, a senior from Oak Forest studying journalism who lived with Kierstead since August. “We’re making the best of a really horrible situation and we’re remembering Alex really fondly.” Kierstead was the only of the four roommates home when the fire started. Roommate Joe Hein said he and Kierstead were supposed to leave Carbondale the Tuesday before break. They had planned to take the 300-mile trip together, but Kierstead decided to spend another night in town so he could lend a ride to a friend.
SINCE 1916
VOL. 100 ISSUE 107
150 years of worship at Olivet
That was the kind of person Kierstead was, Hein said. “He would go out of his way to make friends every single day of his life,” he said. At 4:50 a.m. Nov. 23, firefighters were called to a structure fire at 700 W. Freeman St. When first responders arrived, the home was engulfed in flames. Authorities identified the body found inside the home as Kierstead on Monday. Hein woke that morning to a phone call from Schenkenfelder, who told him the house had burned down. Hein was thinking about all the possessions he’d lost in the home until about an hour later, when he learned about the dead body. “I got the message that there was a body found in the house and all that became irrelevant,” Hein said. “I was just devastated.” The friendship between the housemates dates back to before Kierstead began taking courses at the university. As a prospective student, Kierstead spent a weekend in Carbondale at the home they were renting with John Kenny, a Jacob Wiegand | @jawiegandphoto friend from Aurora who studies political Tammie Swinney, of Carbondale, participates in a worship service Oct. 30 at Olivet Free Will Baptist Church in Carbondale. science and was the third roommate on “It’s like a family [at Olivet],” she said. Swinney has been attending Olivet for five and a half years. This year the church celebrates 150 years in the Carbondale community. Freeman Street. Please see OLIVET | 6 Please see REMEMBER | 2