Candlelight vigil honors Alta Vista child

By Bob Fenske, editor@nhtrib.com

A candlelight vigil in memory of little Sterling Daniel Koehn had just ended Saturday night, and Kim Judge, the Alta Vista woman who organized the event, had but one question as her friends gathered around her.

“Can we cry now?”

And yet Judge and the parade of speakers who shared a few words with a crowd of more than 150 also felt that the vigil had started the healing process for the small town where Koehn’s body was found on Aug. 30 and whose residents were shocked by the Oct. 25 arrests of the boy’s parents, Zachary Koehn and Cheyanne Harris.

After she learned of the arrests, Judge came up with the idea of holding a candlelight vigil.

“I was — you know there’s no other way to put this — angry,” she said. “Who could do that to a baby? How could this happen in this beautiful, peaceful little town? I thought we needed to come together and find some hope and some healing.”

And on Saturday, Alta Vista residents came together to not only remember Sterling but also to raise awareness of child abuse and neglect.

As state Rep. Todd Prichard put it, they came together to “flip the script.”

He shared the story of Lenny Luft, his good friend in Charles City who lost his 14-year-old son in an ATV accident on July 4.

“I remember as crushing as it was, Lenny found joy and comfort in the fact that Logan’s organs and tissues would help 50 to 75 people,” Prichard said. “He had flipped the script. … We owe it to Sterling to flip the script on this tragedy. If we do that — if we all look out for the children of our communities — we give this young baby boy’s life meaning.”

During the opening prayer, Pastor Paula Hemann said she understood the questions those gathered had, but she also said there is an answer.

“We know that you, Jesus Christ, you will bring healing and hope,” she prayed.

Hemann also implored members of the crowd to look out for the children of their communities.

“What can we do to give honor and awareness to a situation that should have never occurred? The best way is the act of giving as God gave,” she said. “The only way for darkness or evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.”

Speakers talked about the importance of Iowa’s “Safe Haven” law.

Some noted that even though the law only waives prosecution for parents who voluntarily give up possession of a baby up to 14 days old, Mercy Medical Center-New Hampton on its Facebook page recently said it will take babies older than 14 days.

“While parents of babies older than 14 days could face prosecution for child abandonment, they can still leave their child at the hospital,” officials wrote on the social media site.

“Hopefully the courts would look more favorably toward parents who leave their child in a safe environment versus neglecting them if they are older than 14 days old,” she site said.

For Chickasaw County Public Health Administrator Kathy Babcock, the candlelight vigil was a start.

She expressed concern Saturday night that child abuse cases are on the rise in Chickasaw County — pointing out the number of cases increased from 18 to 23 in a year’s time.

“It worries me,” she said. “We weren’t called in on Sterling’s case, but it’s happening out there. If you see something that doesn’t seem quite right, call someone. If you’re wrong, OK, but you know what, if you’re right, you may have saved the life of a child.”

For  vigil organizer Judge, it was a Saturday night she never wanted to experience or have to go through again.

But she said the vigil provided her with hope and even a little healing.

“To see so many people come out on a cold, wet night,” she said, “it shows that we do care. This is the Alta Vista I know.

“I don’t want people to think of Alta Vista as ‘that place the baby died.’ Because we do care about our children, and we want to make sure that what happened to Sterling doesn’t happen to his sister or any other child.”