Genealogy Data Page 47 (Notes Pages)

http://www.wwmt.com/articles/kalamazoo-1393664-mich-county.htmlPlainwell man dies after Tuesday crash with garbage truck July 20, 2011 8:56 PM
KALAMAZOO COUNTY, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A Plainwell man who was critically injured in a crash on Tuesday has died. The crash happened at the corner of Riverview and B Drive Tuesday morning. Witnesses say a garbage truck missed a stop sign and ran into a pick-up truck driven by 49-year-old Larry Blahnik of Plainwell. Blahnik was rushed to the hospital, and passed away on Wednesday evening.============
ObitPLAINWELL - When Lary and RoseAnn Blahnik tied the knot, their strong bond was clear to family and friends.
"Today, I get to marry my best friend," their wedding programs read.
Next week, just a little more than 25 years since that day, RoseAnn Blahnik will tell her husband goodbye.
"On Monday," she said, "I get to bury my best friend."
Lary Blahnik, a 49-year-old self-employed businessman from Plainwell, died Wednesday, the day after he was critically injured in a crash in northeastern Kalamazoo County.
Blahnik, who owned a construction company and a residential-property development company, was headed south on Riverview Drive, his preferred route from Plainwell to Kalamazoo, at about 7:17 a.m. Tuesday when his Chevrolet pickup truck was struck by a garbage truck that ran a stop sign at B Avenue.
Blahnik was taken to Borgess Medical Center in critical condition and died there Wednesday evening.
"He was 6 foot 8 inches with a size 18 shoe and a heart bigger than his entire body," RoseAnn Blahnik said of her husband. "He was known by many people as the gentle giant. He was soft-spoken and kind and so helpful, and nobody disliked him, ever."
Blahnik said she and her husband met in 1980 inside Harrison Hall at Western Michigan University. She had come to Kalamazoo from Troy, while Lary Blahnik, a graduate of Goodrich High School near Grand Blanc, had been awarded a scholarship to play basketball for the Broncos.
RoseAnn Blahnik said her husband went on to start for WMU while playing for Steve Fisher, an assistant for the team at the time who went on to lead Michigan to the 1989 national title and now coaches San Diego State. He averaged 5.4 points, 4.5 rebounds and just under one assist over his WMU career and graduated with a degree in finance and accounting.
The couple married in 1986 and settled in the Kalamazoo area, where Lary Blahnik started Midwest Enterprises with two former teammates. The three friends at one point owned more than 60 properties near the WMU campus that they fixed up and then sold or leased.
The Blahniks did the same thing with homes they lived in, fixing up properties in Kalamazoo, Delton, Alamo and Cooper townships and Otsego before designing and building the Plainwell house they have called home since 2000.
More recently, Lary Blahnik owned and ran Blahnik Builders and Blahnik Property Management and coached basketball for the Hoopsters program in Plainwell and girls soccer for Force Soccer, his wife said.
"He led his life by example for his children," RoseAnn Blahnik said. "He was kind and generous to everyone. He taught his kids that character was more important than anything else and integrity defined who you were as an individual."
RoseAnn Blahnik said she and her husband kept close ties to WMU after graduating in 1984 and often attended basketball games. He was a "huge" WMU fan and a college basketball fanatic, she said.
"This family lived and breathed March Madness here," she said. "Most people would say that the only time they heard Larry speak loud is during March Madness."
The couple celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary two weeks ago. To mark the occasion, the Blahniks had planned a trip to the East Coast next month and were going to take their entire family to the Dominican Republic for Thanksgiving.
"It is a message to all the people who know my husband and I and my family that life is so precious and we need to stop ... and appreciate the things that we have more often," RoseAnn Blahnik said of her husband's sudden death.
She said her family has set up the Lary Blahnik Memorial Fund at the Fifth ThirdBank branch in Plainwell to fund a yearly scholarship for an incoming WMU freshman. Her husband's organs and tissue were donated for transplants.
"We had to make sure that there was some good that came out of this whole situation," she said. "And we just figured if we could save someone else ... it gave us hope."
Visitation for Blahnik is scheduled for 4 to 8 p.m. Sunday at Life Story Funeral Home, 120 S. Woodhams St., in Plainwell. A funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday at the Plainwell High School auditorium.