'97 trek's Larry 'Turbo' Stewart dies

Larry Wayne "Turbo" Stewart, a colorful member of the 1997 Mormon Trail Re-enactment train, died Sunday, July 7, 2002, at his home in Cantril, Iowa, at the age of 30.

He was one of a small number of individuals who participated in the entire trail re-enactment after it began in Iowa in 1996. During the trek, he was converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and on the day the wagon train entered Salt Lake Valley, July 22, 1997, he was baptized in a mill pond at This is the Place State Park by the late Elder Hugh W. Pinnock of the Quorum of Seventy and president of the North American Central Area of the church.

After participating in Days of '47 activities in Salt Lake City, Stewart was en route to Iowa when he suffered serious head injuries in an accident near Rock Springs, Wyo. on Aug. 2, 1997. The injuries, which occurred as he was loading his covered wagon onto a flatbed truck, left him permanently disabled, and he had spent the subsequent years in hospitals, care facilities or at home.

Many of those who had become friends with Stewart during the 1,100-mile trek stayed in contact and continued to support him.

The death had not been expected, said Stewart's LDS home teacher, David Alexander. He said Stewart had developed some allergy complications that may have contributed to his demise.

A thorough-going Western horseman, Stewart had been a rodeo clown and animal trainer. He became intrigued with westward trails when he joined the 1996 historic train from Nauvoo, Ill., to Council Bluffs, Iowa. When the trek picked up there in 1997 for the remainder of the Mormon Trail to the Salt Lake Valley, he again became a teamster and was a well-known fixture among wagon train participants.

A funeral will be Thursday at 1 p.m. in Keosauqua, Iowa.