TX TX - John Bankston Jr, 17, Comfort, 13 July 1987

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No photo

John Clinton Bankston
Kendall County, Texas
17 year old white male

Height (inches)

Weight (pounds)

[TD="class: view_field"]73.0[/TD]

[TD="class: view_field"]210.0[/TD]

Brown Hair
Hazel Eyes

Circumstances: John was last seen on July 13, 1987. He was traveline on a bus with 42 other people. As they drove through a flood zone, the water washed the bus into the river.

Dental information / charting is currently not available

DNA Status: Initial inquiry underway

Fingerprint information is currently not available

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/8845/

 

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Search continues for last victim of flash flood

July 20, 1987

COMFORT, Texas -- Heavy equipment plowed through debris and mounted Texas Rangers rode the banks of the now-tame Guadalupe River Monday in search of the 10th victim of Friday's flash flood.

As nearly 200 officials and volunteers began the fourth day of their search, John Bankston Sr., the father of the lone teenager missing from among 43 people swept into the river Friday morning, wept.


'It's terrible. I know he's out there somewhere, his body is,' said Bankston. 'I know the rest of him is now at peace with the Lord. Thank God for that.'
John Bankston Jr., 17, of Dallas, has not been seen since Friday morning and is believed to be the 10th victim of a flash flood that toppled two church vehicles into the Guadalupe near a Texas Hill Country camp.

Thirty-three members of the group from Seagoville Road Baptist Church, located in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs, survived the ordeal.

The group from Seagoville Road church and the affiliated Balch Springs Christian Academy was trying to leave the Pot O Gold Ranch west of Comfort when the bus and van were swamped by rising flood waters.

Bankston disappeared downstream after saving the life of friend Jeff Bowman, 17, of Dallas. Bowman, who had a heavy cast on his leg from a broken ankle, said Bankston kept him afloat for 30 minutes before he released his friend because he was tiring.
The elder Bankston, a truck driver, said he believed his son would help Bowman again, even at the cost of his own life.
'I know if they had to do it over again, they would do it again. That's the way they were raised, to think of others before themselves,' Bankston said.

Read More: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/0...for-last-victim-of-flash-flood/6227553752000/

 

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[h=1]The three-week search for a teenage church camper missing...[/h]Aug. 9, 1987

COMFORT, Texas -- The three-week search for a teenage church camper missing since he was swept away with nine others in the flooded Guadalupe River ended Sunday at the request of the boy's tearful father.

'It's time to go home,' said John Bankston Sr. of Dallas, sobbing as he prepared to end the search for his son, John Bankston Jr., 17.

'It breaks our hearts to leave him.'

The teenager, whose body has never been recovered, is presumed to be the 10th youth killed July 16 when a bus and van evacuating 43 people from a church retreat near Comfort were swamped by a flash flood along the Guadalupe.

The official search for Bankston was called off July 25, but volunteers had continued to look daily for signs of the missing teenager.

Read more: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/0...-teenage-church-camper-missing/8791555480000/

 

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[h=1]Year later, father still searches for body of son[/h]July 17, 1988

One year after 43 people leaving a south Texas church camp were swept into raging floodwaters that killed 10 teenagers, one father still hopes the Guadalupe River will yield the body of his only son.

'We've been preparing for a funeral for a year. It's not over yet,' John Bankston said. 'I wish it was.'


Bankston's 17-year-old son, John Bankston Jr., was the only one of the 10 young campers not found by the hundreds of volunteers and law officers that searched the river's banks near Comfort, Texas, following the July 17, 1987, accident.

Bankston's son was called a hero by witnesses who said he helped save others, pushing them to safety, before he disappeared.
'We still go back and search,' Bankston said.
Memorial services are scheduled Sunday night at Bankston's home church in Mesquite, a suburb of Dallas. The Rev. Dwight Prather, pastor of New Haven Baptist Church, said hymns and a short sermon would mark the anniversary of the tragedy.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/0...still-searches-for-body-of-son/4168585115200/

 

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[FONT=&quot]May 30, 2015

[/FONT][h=1]Searchers push for closure after deadly Central Texas floods[/h]

May 30--Rosie Bankston knows the torment of losing a loved one to a raging river.
Twenty-eight years ago, her 17-year-old son, John Bankston Jr., was one of 10 teens swept away by the Guadalupe River when a wall of water crashed into their bus while evacuating a youth camp near Comfort during a flash flood.
No one ever found him. Last week, Rosie Bankston said she never got closure, and that, despite the passage of more than a quarter-century, she still can't talk about what happened.
"I don't think I can get through it," she said when asked about her experience.
Last week's historic floods, which left a path of destruction and swept away more than a dozen people, led to a grim search along the usually scenic Blanco River in pursuit of what Bankston never got -- a chance to say goodbye, a body to bury.

https://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/searchers-push-for-closure-after-deadly-central-texas-floods

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[CastlesBurning]

Bumping for John - it's now been 34 years.