Tragedy makes the world a small place

In times of tragedy, the world suddenly becomes a very small and personal place.

Southwest Nebraskans were reminded of that Wednesday when a troubled teenager let his personal torment turn him into an executioner at the Westroads Mall in Omaha.

Omaha is 285 miles away, but the tragedy struck Southwest Nebraska like the shootings happened next door.

Our worst fears were confirmed when we learned that one of the victims, Gary Scharf, grew up on a farm near Curtis. How senseless. How tragic.

Matthew Hansen wrote a nice tribute to Gary in the Omaha World-Herald.

"He was just stopping to pick up some stuff from the mall," Gary's friend Mark Pieper told Hansen. But, as fate would have it, Gary was shot to death during a deadly, six-minute shooting rampage.

"The Scharfs were our neighbors," said Rex Nelson, executive director of the McCook Economic Development Corp. "They are a great family and Gary was a tremendously talented and pleasant young man. It's hard to believe that he was struck down by such a senseless act."

A former resident of this area was close by when the random executions took place.

Keith Fidler, a McCook native and a long-time manager of the former Aten's Department Store in Benkelman, is now the men's suit manager at the Von Maur department store in Omaha. He was on duty Wednesday at 1:42 p.m. when the shooting started and, in the aftermath of the terror, was among the first pictured in TV and Internet reports.

My wife's daughter, Debra Adair from Denver, was the first to inform Barbara and me of the awful killings. "It just came across the Internet that there was a shooting at the Von Maur mall in Omaha," Deb told us by telephone. "They showed pictures of Keith Fidler."

We are friends of Keith. The store he managed in Benkelman was down the street from the Benkelman Post, which Barbara and I operated in the 1980s. Keith's wife, Virgie, worked for us as an ad sales representative.

Since moving to Omaha five years ago to be closer to their daughter, Tiffany and her family, Keith has worked at Von Maur. Usually, it's a nice, classy place to work ... one of the finest stores in Omaha.

But in six short minutes, that all changed Wednesday. "It was a terrible thing to be there that day, but it was even worse the next day when I learned the identities of all those who were killed."

The employees who lost their lives were friends of Keith. "I talked with Janet Jorgensen, 66, all the time. She was a sales lady who delighted in telling me about going to her grandchildren's games. And I was just getting to know Maggie Webb, 24, the new store manager. Maggie was a delightful young lady. She was always positive and upbeat. It's tragic that her young life was taken from her." The other Von Maur employees killed were Beverly Flynn, a part-time gift wrapper; Gary Joy, housekeeping; Angie Schuster, manager of the girls department; and Dianne Trent, who was in customer service. The customers who were struck down by the shooter were John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, and Gary Scharf, 48, a national sales manager based in Lincoln.

During the deadly six minutes of killing, it was hard to comprehend what was happening. Loud sounds were what first alerted Keith and other mall employees and shoppers something was happening. Those sounds -- which turned out to be gunfire -- soon led to terror and dread.

"One of our salesgirls rushed out to the atrium to ask a customer to phone for help. While he was reaching for his cell phone, a shot rang out from above and struck and killed the customer," Keith said. Keith, who was on the second floor, peered down and saw the body lifeless lying beside the escalator.

Keith was pictured in the Omaha edition of the Omaha World-Herald Thursday, leading customers from the store. That picture was reprinted Sunday in the outstate edition which is distributed in McCook.

Sunday, Keith went to three memorial services for the victims. Hundreds attended. "There were long lines at all the services," Keith said.

At this point, no one is certain when the Von Maur store will reopen. "I talked with Jim Von Maur at one of the services Sunday, and he said it could be weeks. For one thing, there's a report that one or more shots were fired through the skylight," Keith said.

At times, Omaha seems a long ways off. But, at other times, Nebraska's biggest city is close at hand. Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007, was one of those times. Tragically, it took from us a successful achiever who was born and raised in Southwest Nebraska, and it left another former area resident with a lifetime of sad memories.