cannabisnews.com: After 17 Years, Dad Locates Daughter





After 17 Years, Dad Locates Daughter
Posted by CN Staff on July 16, 2002 at 12:44:12 PT
By Christine Cox, Tribune Staff Writer 
Source: South Bend Tribune 
Nashville, Tenn. -- It almost doesn't seem right to link the pain of the shooting deaths at Rainbow Farm last September to the joyful reunion of a father and the grown daughter he hadn't seen since she was 2 years old.But Rick Hunkler of Texas may never have met his 19-year-old daughter, Vanessa Alham of Nashville, if it weren't for the Rainbow Farm events. The tenacity of his tough Texas girlfriend, a story in The South Bend Tribune and other touches of fate contributed as well.
Because of those things, Hunkler, 42, hugged his daughter for the first time on July 5 after searching for her for 17 years.He also met his son-in-law, Cassopolis native Omar Alham, who also unwittingly played a part in the reunion.And Hunkler delightedly held his 3-week-old granddaughter, Aliyah Louise Alham, in his arms, quieting her cries when everyone else had failed to that day.Hunkler, a muscled biker and career diesel mechanic who stands 6 feet 7 inches tall, laughed at himself the day of the reunion, joking about someone so big misting up so easily.The separation Hunkler was born Oct. 10, 1959, in Flint, Mich., to a father from Detroit and a mother from Paris, Tenn.He grew up on a 4,000-acre family farm in Paris, which is still in operation, raising cows and growing tobacco, corn and soybeans. He went to high school in Nashville.In 1977, at a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Hunkler met Kathie Williams, a Franklin, Tenn., native who is also dark-haired, tall and good-looking. The two were married in 1981.After living in Missouri and California, the couple settled in Quincy, Ill., where Rick attended Quincy Technical School and became an auto diesel repair technician. Hunkler worked at various jobs in Quincy.Vanessa Konstance Hunkler was born March 3, 1983, in Quincy. "We were good parents," Hunkler said. "We did everything we could do with our income at the time."The family stayed in Quincy until 1984, when the steel mills and other businesses started closing. Hunkler found a job in Oklahoma with Reliance Truck Co. fixing diesel trucks. He was transferred to Houston in 1985, and moved there a couple months ahead of his wife and daughter to secure housing.About a month after Williams and Vanessa joined him, Hunkler broke both wrists in a work accident and was forced to stay home to heal. The pain medication he took for his injuries made him sleep heavily. One day in the winter of 1985, he woke up from a deep sleep and discovered his wife and 2-year-old gone."I didn't know what happened," he said. "I filed missing persons reports, but I never heard anything back." He called Williams' mother, asking her to tell him if she heard from Williams, but she never did.Through the years, Hunkler hired private investigators to try to track down his daughter. They looked in Quincy, where Williams took and raised her daughter. But the investigators never found Vanessa."Every year me and my mom would talk about it," Hunkler said. On Vanessa's birthday, he would run newspaper ads, looking for any scrap of information about his missing daughter.Meanwhile, Hunkler had moved to Magnolia, Texas, remarried and had three more daughters: Kether, 16; Sheldon, 13, and Miranda, 12. He and his wife are currently in the process of divorce.Even with his new family, Hunkler never forgot Vanessa."I thought about her all the time," he said. "I've always had pictures of her. Her sisters know about her. ... She's always been my daughter."Vanessa's story Vanessa grew up in Quincy without hearing much or ever seeing even a photograph of her father. Every once in a while, her mother would tell her bits of information about her father -- that he liked science fiction like Vanessa did or that something she did reminded her of Hunkler.Williams never bad-mouthed Hunkler. Nor did she explain to her daughter why she had left Hunkler or that he might be searching for them."It wasn't like we were hiding," Vanessa said.But Vanessa also didn't search for her father. "I always wondered" about him, she said. "I thought he might be married and didn't want me in his life."A calm, gentle flower child at heart, Vanessa dropped out of school in 10th grade and worked at a "hippie store" in Quincy, making jewelry and doing silk-screen printing.In the summer of 2000, the store got a flier for Roach Roast 2000 at Rainbow Farm in Vandalia, a festival that celebrated marijuana. A few people from the store decided to travel to the campground to sell their goods, jewelry and other items.A week at Rainbow Farm was enough to make Vanessa fall in love with the place. She decided to head back the next year for Roach Roast 2001.She and two friends from Quincy traveled to Michigan in August 2001.On her way to the campground showers, fate intervened. Omar Alham, now 19, saw Vanessa and asked her friends who she was. They met later that night and have been inseparable ever since.The Rainbow connection Because of Omar, Vanessa stayed at Rainbow Farm longer than she expected. She was there on Aug. 29, 2001, when Tom Crosslin, the farm's owner, kicked all the campers off the property, but not before he invited them to help themselves to free goods from the camp store.On Aug. 31, the day they were to have appeared in court, Crosslin and his companion and business partner, Rolland Rohm, started setting buildings on fire at the campground. A five-day police standoff ensued, attracting protesters from all over the country.Crosslin was shot to death on Sept. 3, by police who said he had pointed a rifle at officers. Omar's friend, 18-year-old Vandalia resident Brandon Peoples, was standing near Crosslin when he was shot.Rohm, who had originally agreed to surrender, was shot to death the next day also after allegedly pointing a gun at police.Police and Rainbow Farm supporters speculate the standoff was the result of Crosslin and Rohm facing illegal drug and weapons charges. Also contributing to the standoff may have been the fact that Rohm's 13-year-old son, who had lived with the two men, had been taken by the state months earlier after criminal charges had been leveled.A longtime advocate of marijuana decriminalization, Crosslin held festivals like Roach Roast on the campground for years. Months before the standoff, police had gone undercover to festivals and found evidence of drug use and sales there.On the afternoon of Sept. 4, Cass County Sheriff's deputies interviewed Omar about his knowledge of the Rainbow Farm standoff. Vanessa waited in the police department lobby.While she waited, Vanessa spoke with a Tribune reporter about Rainbow Farm. Her comments were published in a Sept. 5 story, which would become a key to her reunion with her father.After Rainbow Farm, Vanessa and Omar spent a month at the annual Rainbow Family of Living Light Regional Gathering in Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. They later moved to Elkhart and were married there on Dec. 11.They moved to Franklin in February to be near Vanessa's mother and grandparents.Aliyah was born June 19, the day Melinda Rogers began her search for Vanessa.HotTexGal Melinda Rogers, 29, is as tanned, strong and beautiful as you'd expect from a Texas woman.The single mother of a 5-year-old son, Rogers has worked as a emergency medical technician and firefighter.It was the death of her father, Don Chaline, that started Rogers' passion for investigation. Houston police ruled Chaline had died from massive head injuries from a fall. But Rogers thought differently. She spent more than $50,000 on her own detectives to try to prove he was killed for being a witness to the murder of a family killed by a hit man.In February when Hunkler moved into the house across the street, neighbors told Rogers the two would make a good couple. But Rogers said there was no way she'd date a neighbor.That was until about four months ago, when Hunkler came over one night to help Rogers light a brush pile. The two stayed up until the early hours of the morning talking.After hearing much about Hunkler's lost daughter, Rogers finally told him to make a list of names and facts she could use to try to track down Vanessa. She got the list on June 19 and typed in the name "Vanessa Hunkler" on her computer.The hit She got one direct hit from the Internet search. Cannabisnews.com had the Sept. 5 South Bend Tribune story listed on its site. The story identified Vanessa as being 18 and from Quincy. Rogers had a feeling she had struck gold.Rogers e-mailed The Tribune on June 26 and got a phone call back the next day. The Tribune reporter told her she did not have contact information for Vanessa, but suggested Rogers try contacting people connected to Rainbow Farm.Rogers asked the reporter what Vanessa looked like and was told she was tall with dark hair, pretty blue or green eyes and a wide smile."When she gave the description, I said, 'If that ain't Rick's daughter, I don't know who it is,' " Rogers recalled.From there, Rogers started pulling up as many Internet stories about Rainbow Farm as she could.On June 28, Rogers talked to Doug Linebach, a former Rainbow Farm employee, who told her that Brandon Peoples knew Omar and Vanessa well. He also told her that Vanessa and Omar were planning to get married and expecting a child.Linebach told Rogers he would talk to Peoples and call her back in a few days. But Rogers couldn't wait.She tracked down a phone number she believed was Peoples' and called it all weekend only to get a busy signal.On Monday morning, July 1, Peoples' phone finally rang, Rogers said. It was Brandon Peoples himself who answered.Phone calls Although Peoples was polite and helpful after listening to her story, Rogers could tell he wasn't going to give her much information without clearing it with the Alhams first."He told me to call him back in 10 minutes and he would see if he could find the number," Rogers said, laughing. "Which I knew meant, 'I'm going to call them to make sure it's OK to give them the number.' "In Franklin, Vanessa answered the phone when Peoples called."He said, 'I got the weirdest phone call today. ... This lady named Melinda called me and it's about your dad,' " Vanessa said, recalling her conversation with Peoples."I'm like, 'My dad? What are you talking about?'"He's like, 'Your dad's been looking for you.'"I'm like, 'He's looking for me?' "Vanessa said the information wasn't sinking in until she hung up the phone. She immediately called her mother. Williams then called her mother and called Vanessa back.Vanessa asked her mother what she should do. Williams told her to do what she wanted to do."I'm like, 'Well, I'm going to talk to him,' " Vanessa said. Her mother said that would be fine."I went out on the porch and then five minutes later, the phone rang," Vanessa said. She demonstrated the deep, audible breath she took before picking up the receiver."I answered and it was him. It was him," she said, smiling. "So I said, 'Are you my dad?'"From Rick, who was calling from work, she heard, "Is this Vanessa? Vanessa Hunkler?" When she replied that it was, he said, "I hear congratulations are in order."The two talked for about half an hour. He was so excited, he called her again that night and they talked for three hours, Rogers said. Much of the conversation centered around Aliyah, and Hunkler also talked to Omar.They talked the following days for hours and Rick decided he was going to jump on his motorcycle with Melinda on the back and ride 15 hours to visit his daughter, granddaughter and new son-in-law.When they arrived the morning of July 5, "He jumped off the bike and threw off his helmet," Rogers said of Hunkler.Vanessa and her father said there was no awkwardness or hurt from the reunion."I just wish it had happened sooner," Hunkler said a few hours later. "... I wish I could have been there when they got married and been there when the baby was born."I missed out on a lot. I'll try not to miss out on anything else.""There's still a lot to be done," Vanessa added. "There's still a lot."Water under the bridgeKathie Williams was also at the Alhams' apartment the day of the reunion. Though she politely declined to talk about her reasons for taking Vanessa and leaving Hunkler 17 years ago, Williams said she is thrilled about the reunion."I am so glad. I couldn't be happier," she said. "I am so pleased."... I wished it could have happened before."Williams also hasn't shared her reasons for leaving with her daughter or ex-husband. But both of them say they are not bitter about anything."It's in the past," Vanessa said. "We're all just moving forward."End of the rainbowIf the words Rainbow Farm bring up negative thoughts in others' minds, they certainly don't in Vanessa Alham's mind."I never thought when I woke up that day that I'd be talking to my dad, you know? Never in my wildest imagination ..." she said of the day of the first phone call."But you know, it's strange because I was thinking the day after that if all the events that happened hadn't happened, we wouldn't be sitting here right now."I wouldn't have this really pretty, precious angel with me," she said, looking down at Aliyah. "Rainbow Farm is what brought me and Omar together, and in turn it brought me and my dad together."It just keeps on bringing people together. A lot of people found friends and family and loved ones there," she said. "It's really, really neat."Note: Tribune story of Rainbow Farm standoff leads to reunion. Newshawk: mr greengenes Source: South Bend Tribune (IN)Author: Christine Cox, Tribune Staff Writer Published: July 14, 2002 Copyright: 2002 South Bend TribuneContact: vop sbtinfo.comWebsite: http://www.southbendtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Rainbow Farmhttp://www.rainbowfarmcamp.com/Tom & Rollie Memorial Pagehttp://freedomtoexhale.com/rb.htmRainbow Farm Rememberedhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12799.shtml Lawyer Expected Different Outcome http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10826.shtmlFatal Endings Leave Supporters Wonderinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10823.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #7 posted by Hope on June 08, 2011 at 11:47:26 PT
Lol! I like that.
"I don't let angry people clutter my brain."
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by FoM on June 08, 2011 at 07:07:39 PT
Had Enough
I will do that and you're correct I already do. I have found sweet people in other forums on totally different topics then what we have on CNews. I don't let angry people clutter my brain. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by Had Enough on June 07, 2011 at 23:22:24 PT
FoM …Thank You…
FoM …Thank You…Yes there is some sweetness out there somewhere…I see a lot of it here, but also found in other places…Hard to find…very hard to find…however it is there for those who notice…which many cannot comprehend…Go hold Stick’s hand…give him a big hug…But; I’m sure you do that on a regular basis…without having to be reminded…which is a cool thing…Peace to you Sister…************Guess Who - No Sugar Tonighthttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfqIl7OZj5g&feature=related
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by FoM on June 07, 2011 at 10:13:18 PT
Had Enough 
You are so sweet. Thank you.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by Had Enough on June 07, 2011 at 09:42:55 PT
It's really, really neat."
“”The hit
 She got one direct hit from the Internet search. Cannabisnews.com had the Sept. 5 South Bend Tribune story listed on its site. The story identified Vanessa as being 18 and from Quincy. Rogers had a feeling she had struck gold.” ”Ya gotta love it…very good FoM…powerful website we have here…***At the end of the article it states this about The Rainbow Farm…It applies to Cnews too!!!“”"It just keeps on bringing people together. A lot of people found friends and family and loved ones there," she said. "It's really, really neat."”
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by FoM on June 07, 2011 at 07:35:46 PT
 jerrytalton2011
My husband wanted to contact a couple Vietnam Veterans that were in his Company back in 69. Someone told us about this people search. We were successful and maybe this search could help you. Good Luck.http://www.zabasearch.com/
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by jerrytalton2011 on June 07, 2011 at 07:28:57 PT:
Rick Hunkler-can anyone tell me how to contact him
or vanessa alham or virginia williams?i was there gay friend when they lived in quincy illinois,would like to talk with rick to see how and what he's doing now and congradulate vanessa on her baby on husband omar khaled alham.when u contact rick tell him i have the missing pieces of when virginia and vanessa was in quincy they lived with one of my close friends,give rick my number please cell 573-719-0435 home 573-735-1322 if u cant give me ricks number and address please make sure he gets mine please,tell him it's urgent that we talk asap thank u
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment