By Woods
Even though he was a billionaire, West Virginia coal magnate Chris Cline never forgot his humble roots, loved ones said at a Thursday night vigil.
The memorial for Cline — along with his daughter and the five others killed in a Fourth of July helicopter crash in the Bahamas — drew a crowd of hundreds to Beckley, West Virginia — the magnate’s hometown.
“He never forgot about Southern West Virginia,” vigil organizer Richard Jarrell said of Cline, 61, a former coal miner who turned his Foresight Energy company into a billion-dollar operation, local station WVVA reported. “This is where he grew up, this is where he was raised in the coalfields, and it was important to him.
The tycoon’s daughter Kameron, 22, was also killed in the crash. Her mother, Kelli Fama, wrote a letter that another friend, Jody Cook, read on her behalf during the vigil.
“There are no words that can describe what a beautiful daughter we were blessed with,” Fama wrote. “But I’ve learned so far the only thing that can make sense of this devastating tragedy is that God has a better life planned for both of them and greater things for those she left behind. It seems impossible to understand now. But if we can hold on to that, if we truly can, we will heal.”
Kameron’s friend, Delaney Wykle, 22 — whom she met in grade school in West Virginia before the heiress moved to Florida, also lost her life in the crash.
Wykle had traveled to the tycoon’s private island for a July 4 celebration.
But their trip was cut short when Kameron experienced a medical emergency, prompting her dad to try to rush her to a Florida airport in his chopper.
Shortly after taking off, the helicopter plunged into the ocean, killing all seven people aboard, authorities said. The wreckage was discovered about two miles from Big Grand Cay.
Pilot Geoffrey Lee Painter, 52, family friend David Jude, 52, of Kentucky, and Kameron’s college friends Brittney Searson, 21, and Jillian Clark, 22, were also killed in the crash.
