BIKER DAD: 17-year-old Vigor student among those added to memorial for fallen bikers

Posted: Jun 28, 2020 / 03:45 PM CDT / Updated: Jun 28, 2020 / 06:44 PM CDT

MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG/BIKER DAD) — Poetry and prayers. These may not be the first things you would expect out of a group of bearded bikers in leather and bandanas, hanging out at a local biker bar. One by one, they stood and read the prose. The hot Alabama sun beat down on them, gleaming off their biker vests and their sunglasses as they read the lines, and choked back tears.

No, they haven’t given up their motorcycle clubs to become a poetry group. This is an annual event to honor the bikers lost in the past year. The poetry is read, their names read aloud, and then placed on a wall outside of Boondock’s, a popular biker hang out. This year, the riders are placing the name of the youngest person they’ve ever had to read, a 17-year-old Vigor High senior. Instead of graduation, Patrick Crawford’s family had a funeral. He was killed just days before he was to walk the stage. “He’d been riding since he was 3,” his mother, Shannon Stewart told me, “he was a real good kid, did a lot of volunteer work.”

Patrick’s name was just one of about a dozen names read off at the Riders4Riders memorial. The Biker Dad Blog has covered several of their stories in the past year:

James “Laydown” Chesson was a veteran.

Jim Turner was killed in a head-on crash on Highway 59 in Loxley. His 11-year-old grandson, Caleb is still in the hospital recovering from that same crash.

Jermayne Doolittle did not die in a crash, but was instead a victim of murder. But, he was a very well known biker in the community. His name was also added to the memorial.

Riders4Riders have been cebrating the lives of fallen bikers each May for about 8 years, but this year’s memorial was postponed due to coronavirus. “They did it right,” Patrick’s grandmother told me, “they celebrated their lives,” rather than focus on just the loss.

Here’s a list of other bikers added to the memorial Sunday: