Feb 7, 2005 By Rebekah Sungala 6 min read

CRUCIBLE – The Conklin family never thought the river they loved would become their brother’s grave. They used to go there to relax and have fun. Now they go there to mourn.

As children, the 10 Conklin siblings spent long days swimming in the cool, green water of the Monongahela River and goofing around on the riverbank. But now, as adults, they desperately scan the water and search the riverbank for their brother’s body.

Rick Conklin, 40, of Crucible has been missing since Jan. 9, when the raging water of the Ohio River swept the towboat he was on, the Elizabeth M., backward over the Montgomery Island Lock and Dam, about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Three men were killed when the towboat sank at 2:30 a.m. Conklin is presumed dead, but his body has not been found.

“I hate the river now,” says Conklin’s sister, Lori Hoover. “It’s hard for me to even look at it and know my brother is possibly in it.”

But she has to look at the river every day, as do many of her brothers and sisters. They drive past it, live next to it.

Rita McMillen, Conklin’s sister, can’t wash dishes in her kitchen sink without looking out the window and seeing the river. Hailey, her 19-month-old daughter, is learning to talk. Whenever she sees a boat coming up or down the river she says, with a smile, “Ricky works on the boat.”

“I was teaching her to say that before the accident,” McMillen says. “I don’t know what to tell her now.”

The Conklins still grieve four weeks after the towboat accident. Gathered in sister Lisa Chambers’ living room in Crucible, the family talks openly and their tears fall freely. Someone passes a tissue box.

Eleven-year-old Rodney Conklin Jr. wipes his eyes against the inside of his hooded sweatshirt and goes to sit next to his father as his aunts and grandmother talk about his missing uncle.

They are angry that Rick Conklin’s body hasn’t been found, that more searches aren’t being conducted.

“The last thing we want is for anyone else to get hurt searching,” says Christine Maskovich, Conklin’s oldest sister. “But it’s been how long now, and the water level has gone down. We don’t have any answers. We don’t know where he was when the boat sank, and we don’t know where he is now.”

Chambers says she, like the rest of the family, needs closure. The family is going about their day-to-day lives, but Chambers says it’s difficult.

“You do a little bit and then you cry. We haven’t been able to have a funeral. We know that his spirit is in God’s hands, but we need to see him,” she says as she bows her head and cries. She pauses for a moment and whispers, “I need to touch him again.”

But make no mistake, the Conklins aren’t submerged in their grief. They are a close-knit family – most of them live in this small Greene County village – and whenever one sibling cries, another is there to remind him or her of something amusing their missing brother did.

Moments later, Chambers dries her tears and laughs at a photograph her brother Rodney Conklin hands her. It’s a picture of Rick Conklin, and in it the heavy-set, bearded man is wearing a blond Dolly Parton wig.

“He said that’s what I would look like with a mustache and a beard,” Chambers says, laughing.

Conklin’s mother, Carol Conklin, always prayed for her eighth son because she knew he had a dangerous job. She had a feeling something was going to happen to Conklin and says she wasn’t surprised when his wife, Robin, called her early that Sunday morning and told her that there was a boat accident and her son was missing.

“I knew it was bad,” she says, “but you can’t give up hope.”

Rick Conklin loved working on the river.

A U.S. Army veteran of Desert Storm, he was a crane man during his 12 years in the Army and worked around boats in the service.

After his discharge, he worked a series of jobs, and in February 2000, with the help of brother-in-law George “Toby” Zappone, he landed a job working on riverboats with Campbell Transportation Inc. of Dunlevy, Washington County. Conklin was training to be a towboat pilot when the accident occurred.

Chambers and Hoover – who are twins – both spoke to Conklin on their birthday, Jan. 1.

“He always called us on our birthday, no matter where he was,” Chambers says. “He was working and said the crew was held up in Ohio because the water was too high and they were waiting. He wished me a happy birthday and said that he loved me. That was the last time I talked to him.”

The family members continue to hold on to a strand of hope that Conklin is alive, even though they know he is most likely dead.

“You just never give up. It’s always in the back of your mind,” Hoover says.

Carol Conklin says her husband, Robert Conklin, always looked forward to visiting with their son when he would arrive home after working on the boats.

And his absence has taken its toll on the elder Conklin, according to his wife.

“My husband had open heart surgery five years ago, and he has to take oxygen every few days, so he doesn’t go very many places. He sits in the basement and says that he’s waiting for Ricky to walk in,” she says, adding that she would love to pick up the phone and hear, “Momma, it’s Rick.”

Carol Conklin says she feels for the other families who lost loved ones in the accident.

“It creates an empty spot in your heart that won’t ever be filled. Answers would help. Why did this happen? But even answers won’t fill the spot,” she says.

The 2:30 a.m. accident claimed the life of Edward Crevda, 22, of West Brownsville, Tom Fisher, 25, of Latrobe and Scott Stewart, 36, of Wheeling, W.Va.

Three crewmembers – including Zappone, who lost a finger in the accident – were rescued.

The U.S. Coast Guard concluded a weeklong hearing into the accident Friday; however, the report of its findings could take up to a year, or longer, to prepare.

For Chambers, a year is too long to wait.

“It’s only been a month and it already feels like forever. We need some sort of answer, from someone,” she says.

Chambers lives across the street, diagonal from the house in which Conklin lived. “Do you know how hard it is for me to go out on my front porch and know that I can’t go over to there and see his face?” she says.

Chambers says she will sit on her back porch this summer, but even that won’t provide much relief, for there’s a river nearby and no burial for her brother.