DUI Victims memorial from The Meadville Tribune on Vimeo.

By Mary Spicer

MEADVILLE TRIBUNE

VERNON TOWNSHIP — The September day back in 2001 that’s forever burned in Ellie Luba’s memory isn’t Tuesday the 11th. It’s Sept. 9, the day her older sister made a tragic decision. Shelley Anne Marie Luba got into a car driven by someone who had been drinking — and she didn’t live to tell the tale.

Saturday afternoon, Ellie climbed a short staircase and entered a 30-foot trailer parked in the lot between Wal-Mart and Staples Plaza. Inside, she saw her sister’s name inscribed on a 25-foot memorial wall along with approximately 1,500 others.

“It’s great to see Shelley’s name up there. She’s remembered every day by all her family and all of her friends — and this is a way for everybody else to see it,” she said.

“It’s a shame,” she added, “that they’re all here because somebody was drinking and driving.”

The DUI Victims Moving Memorial will be open to the public again today from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., giving visitors an opportunity to pay respects, submit the names of DUI victims for inclusion on the wall and sign a pledge to drive sober, obey speed limits and always wear a seat belt when driving or riding in a motor vehicle.

The visit is part of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s Operation Safe Holiday, a program designed to reduce traffic crashes and fatalities during the current holiday season. In Crawford County, figures compiled by PennDOT indicate there were six alcohol-related deaths in 2007, down from 11 in 2006.

In addition to PennDOT, sponsors of the visit include Crawford County DUI Task Force, Vernon Township Police Department and Pennsylvania DUI Association.

For Frank Baranyai, coordinator of the Crawford County DUI Task Force, it’s personal.

Shelley Luba was his niece. “She was a 20-year-old student up at Edinboro University (of Pennsylvania) just getting her life started,” Baranyai said Saturday, shortly before his niece Ellie arrived. “The mistake Shelley made was getting into the car with somebody who was already drunk. She got off work that night and a little bit later, she was dead.”

His interest in putting a stop to drunk driving, however, was kindled much earlier, back when the veteran law enforcement officer was a teenager. “I was in Vietnam when I got a letter from my family that three of my friends back here were all killed because they were drunk,” he recalled. “It caught my interest — and things sort of took off from there.”

Owned and operated by Pennsylvania DUI Association, the trailer features the names of DUI victims who have been honored in a memorial garden at the association’s Harrisburg headquarters. Built in conjunction with MADD Pennsylvania and various corporate sponsors and opened to the public in 2003, the garden incorporates bricks, pavers and benches in addition to trees, shrubs and flowering plants in a setting designed to be both beautiful and serene. The garden is open to the public 365 days per year.