By DAN SCHNEIDER, DMG Writer
The Daily Mining Gazette, Houghton
ONTONAGON — The death of a youth from Ontonagon after a ski accident was felt well beyond his hometown.
Kurt Blake died March 17 in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield, Wis. at the age of 13 from injuries sustained in a skiing accident March 8 at the Porcupine Mountains ski area.
Blake was a multi-sport athlete who was well-liked by those who knew him and played with him.
Even his competitors on the basketball court travelled to pay their respects March 20.
“The whole eighth grade basketball team from Calumet came to the visitation to present him with a basketball,” Jerry Blake, Kurt’s father, said.
The Calumet team and Kurt Blake’s team from Ontonagon had played to multiple overtimes in the final game of a tournament in L’Anse.
“Ontonagon ended up beating them in four overtimes,” Blake said.
He said it was not unusual for his son to socialize with members of the other team after a game, whichever way the score went.
“He was a strong, strong competitor but he was one that would always show great sportsmanship, too,” Blake said. “Even though he’d give 110 percent, afterward in the bleachers they’d be having a ball, too.”
Kurt Blake had made a lot of friends playing sports.“A lot of kids knew Kurt from everywhere. A lot of it was through athletics but it was other ways, too,” Blake said.
Trevor Ongie knew Kurt Blake because they went to summer camp together.
“He knew him from Gitchee Gumee Bible Camp,” Trevor Ongie’s mother, Gail Ongie said. “In the summers, he camped out there with him probably for the last four years.”
Trevor Ongie contributed to a pop can drive in Ontonagon that collected money for Kurt Blake’s family while the youth was in the hospital.
Youth in Ontonagon collected more than $2,300 in returnable deposits to help the Blake family pay for medical and other expenses.
“I was up there one day for an hour and a half and I couldn’t believe how hard they were working,” Jerry Blake said. “The day they did it, they went from 11 (a.m.) to 8:30 (p.m.) and on that day itself they put 23,000 cans through that machine.”
He said the collection helped his son’s peers cope with the loss.
“For the kids, when I first heard of the can drive I said ‘kids, you don’t have to do that,’ but that was a way of them feeling like they could do something,” Jerry Blake said.
Trevor Ongie, who lives in Dollar Bay, collected $682 worth of returnables and other donations to add to what was collected in Ontonagon.
“I just basically went to people I knew and asked them if they had any pop cans they were willing to donate for a good cause and some people didn’t have any pop cans so they just donated money,” Trevor Ongie said.
He also spent his share of time feeding cans and bottles into return machines.
“For each of three or four nights we went up there to return them it took us an hour and a half almost every day to do them all,” he said.
Jerry Blake said the support has been vital to his family following his son’s death.
“We’re just overwhelmed by the community support and all this and the prayers and everything else that the community’s put up has been wonderful and that’s what’s helped us through, our faith and the community that’s behind us,” he said.
Dan Schneider can be reached at dschneider@mininggazette.com
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