SALLISAW - A Vian woman who was killed at sea during superstorm Sandy will be remembered as caring and selfless, a family friend said.
Claudene Christian, 42, was a crew member on the HMS Bounty, a replica 18th Century ship that sank early Monday off the coast of North Carolina. She was found unresponsive later that day and was pronounced dead at a hospital, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Sequoyah County Sheriff Ron Lockhart, who said he knew Christian and her family because she often volunteered with the Sheriff's Office, described her Tuesday as someone whose greatest desire was to help others.
He said friends will remember her as "just a standout person" and said members of his agency will miss her.
"She just had a huge, caring heart," he said.
Christian and the Bounty's captain, Robin Walbridge, 63, were not with the other 14 crew members who were rescued from life boats about 6:30 a.m. Monday.
Christian reportedly was found drifting in the ocean with a lifejacket that evening and did not respond to CPR. She was taken to a North Carolina hospital.
Her aunt, Patricia Saulsberry, told Fort Smith, Ark., television station KFSM that she might have been in the water for as long as 10 hours.
Walbridge was still missing Tuesday.
He reportedly had taken the ship out to sea to avoid storm damage in port. A post on the ship's Facebook page said it was a "calculated decision" because "a ship is safer at sea than in port!"
Lockhart said he had known Christian and her parents since they moved to Vian from California about 2 1/2 years ago.
Christian grew up in Alaska and participated in academic and beauty contests throughout high school, once winning the title of Miss Alaska Teenager, according to an online biography.
She was a cheerleader for the University of Southern California, where she graduated in 1992 and as a freshman had founded a company that makes dolls of college cheerleaders, the biography says.
Lockhart said she was still involved in Cheerleader Doll Co. after moving to Oklahoma and enjoyed giving dolls to Sheriff's Office employees.
"She made sure that all the sheriff's staff had a collegiate doll," he said. "She just wanted to share what she had for everybody there."
Saulsberry told KFSM that Christian became interested in tall sailing ships when replicas of the Nina and Pinta sailed into Muskogee last year. That led her to the job on the Bounty, she said.
Christian wrote on her Facebook page that she was a descendant of Fletcher Christian, who led a mutiny aboard the original Bounty in 1789.
That ship's replica was built for a 1962 movie depicting that incident and was later used in other movies and as a traveling museum.
"As a descendent of Fletcher Christian, played in four movies by Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando & Mel Gibson, I'm sure my ancestor would be proud," she wrote on her Facebook page.
Christian told The Chronicle Herald of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in August that she was Fletcher Christian's great-great-great-great-great granddaughter.
Neither Saulsberry nor Christian's parents could be reached Tuesday.
Lockhart said Christian's parents went to the East Coast after hearing the news, so he established a memorial fund in their absence.
Donations for funeral costs can be made in Christian's name at Armstrong Bank in Vian, Gore, Sallisaw, Muldrow and Muskogee, he said.
"They didn't have anyone else around here - family - to do anything like that," the sheriff said.
Original Print Headline: Vian woman killed in storm
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
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