List of Names Puts Human Face on Joplin Toll [View All]

Source: Reuters

List of names puts human face on Joplin toll

By Elliott Blackburn
JOPLIN, MO | Sat May 28, 2011 7:14pm EDT

JOPLIN, Mo (Reuters) - They range from one-year old Hayze Howard to 92-year-old Margaret Tuit, but the official list of 52 Joplin tornado victims does not tell their stories, or that of teenager Will Norton killed on his graduation day.

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One name on the list was 18-year-old Norton, whose tragic story sparked an outpouring of sympathy on social networks. His body was found in a debris-strewn pond that had been repeatedly checked in the first days after the tornado, his relatives said on Saturday.

Norton was driving home from his high school graduation ceremony with his father last Sunday when the tornado hit. Norton's father tried desperately to hold onto Will with both arms but the boy was sucked from the vehicle by the 200 mile-per-hour winds.

"As a dad, you don't want to let your kids go," Norton's aunt Tracey Presslor told Reuters. The teenager, who planned to study film in college, was a minor celebrity on YouTube because some of the videos he posted were so popular, Presslor said.

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