Hi, all,
The idea for this story was brought to me by Jason Assad and once I dug into it, I could tell it was one that people wanted to know more about. For many people, the deaths of Bruce Bunch, Kyle Fleming and Rick Hemme is still a very fresh memory, 35 years later.
The photo here is the opening spread of a 12 page article being published next week in the next issue of META. Last October I started the journey of trying to tell the story of what happened in Ponca City, OK on August 1, 1982.
Maybe my work will only lead to more questions but the promise I made to the Bunch, Fleming and Hemme families was that everyone would know who their boys were and who they wanted to be.
Over 6 months of reporting went into this article, involving interviews with 50 different individuals, which ended up being 8,000 words, an unheard of length in motorcycle magazines. It was a complicated process and not every detail was able to get to print. I also ran into the issue of one person's account completely contradicting the account of another person's and I knew I could only report the stories that was I able to corroborate from multiple sources.
The family trusted me with this story and that's a very high honor. Word has started to leak about this article's release and I've been getting phone calls from complete strangers, men who were friends of the boys and just wanted to talk about them. I've also been getting messages from young men who are only in their 20s but they want to know more. It let me know that their memory is still very strong and now a younger generation will know who they were as well.
The article (shipping on July 21) will be published in Volume 009 of Meta Magazine and can be ordered from readmeta.com or by visiting a Barnes & Nobles (probably early August). A list of independent stockists can be found on the website.
