Child killed by car to be honored

Adrienne Packer

Wednesday, April 7, 1999 | 11:24 a.m.

It's been five years since Kush Bhatnagar's classmate was struck and killed by a truck as she began crossing Vegas Valley Drive. But that doesn't mean her kindergarten classmate has faded from her memory.

Bhatnagar, now a fifth-grader at Laura Dearing School, asked Clark County commissioners to name a new park on Vegas Valley Magdalena Colon Memorial Park.

"I would name it that because I had a friend and her name was Magdalena," Bhatnagar wrote on her entry in the county's Name-the-Park Contest.

"She got hit by a car and died right next to where you guys are making the park. So you could be making a memorial and telling other children to look each way before crossing the road."

Commissioner Myrna Williams, who oversees the district where the park was built, couldn't argue with Bhatnagar's reasoning. However, another Laura Dearing fifth-grader also had a valid thought.

Corina Vidal suggested naming the park Vegas Mountain Park, because it sits at the corner of Vegas Valley and Mountain Vista Drive.

"This way people don't get lost when they try to find the park," Vidal wrote.

Glenn Trowbridge, the county's director of parks and recreation, agreed with Vidal.

"One of the most common calls we get is from people wondering where a park is," Trowbridge said. "She's got the right idea."

In a quandary, Williams did what most politicians would do -- she compromised.

So following a unanimous commission vote, the new park received a name: Magdalena's Vegas Mountain Park.