Service honors Sandy Casey

Sandy Casey

Photo courtesy of Manchester Journal

Andrew McKeever

GNAT-TV

DORSET – A memorial service honoring the life of Sandra L. Casey, an East Dorset native and graduate of Burr and Burton Academy’s class of 2000, was held Tuesday morning, Oct. 17, at the Dorset United Church.

A large crowd filled the church for the service, which was officiated by church’s pastor, the Rev. Dr. James H. Gray.

Casey, 35,  was one of the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas which occurred the night of Oct. 1, when a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival, which left 58 people dead and nearly 550 people injured.

The hour-long ceremony, which started at 11 a.m., followed a quiet morning on Dorset’s Church Street, as mourners, neighbors, family members and friends entered the church for more than 90 minutes preceding the start of the services.

Friends attending the service remembered Casey, who went on to attend the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, and then earned a masters degree in special education from Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., in 2005. She was working as a special education teacher for the last nine years at the Manhattan Beach Middle School in Manhattan Beach, Calif.

She was engaged to be married to Chris Willemse, who took part in the service and was listed as one of the pallbearers on the program distributed before its start.

“It’s a really sad situation,” said Steve Nichols, who knew the Casey family while growing up in the Manchester area. “Having to pass Sandy …. She enjoyed doing what she was doing, listening to the …. Country and western singers we grew up around. Steve and Theresa (Sandy’s parents) were wonderful parents …just a wonderful family.”

“It’s a devastation that should not have happened,” he added.

Dorset’s town manager, Rob Gaiotti, was a classmate of Casey’s at Burr and Burton.

The  Casey family was well-known locally and deeply connected to the community, he said, on his way to service.

”She was a great person, from a great family, from a great town,” he said. “I think you’ll see that here today from people showing an outpouring of support in a sad time.”

According to the service’s program, it began with a silent meditation and followed by an opening prayer. These were followed by a reading of the 23rd psalm, then readings by her sister, Amanda Bevis, and cousins Linda O’Leary and Samantha Stone. A celebration of memories featured those by Rev. Gray, an “uncle,” Paul Guay, Kristi Hansen, a colleague from Poultney High School and Chris Willemse, her fiance.

The service closed with a benediction and “Amazing Grace” for the recessional.

Then those attending the service gathered around the front of the church as the coffin bearing Sandy Casey emerged and was taken to a waiting hearse, shortly after noon.