CALEDONIA — Taylor Binnert, 21, Emily Peterson, 17, and her brother Chris Peterson, 20, all passed away tragically in an accident in Wheatland earlier this week. The accident has now garnered a professional athlete’s attention. Emily Peterson’s favorite basketball player was Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics.
Through community outreach on the social media site Twitter, several tweets sent to the Celtics point guard received his attention. Area teens who knew Peterson began using the hashtag “rondoforcmstrong” and sending the tweets to Rondo’s personal account.
At 11:47 a.m., Rondo himself tweeted the hashtag and retweeted one of the tweets sent to him, showing his support.
Rondo is followed by 1.2 million Twitter users and as of 12:50 p.m. the tweet below has been favorited 491 times and retweeted 793 times and those numbers continue to grow.
The “Cal-Mum Strong” logo has begun to appear all over social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram was created by Elaina Riggi, a soon-to-be Senior at Caledonia-Mumford Central School.
The two additional passengers in the Jeep, Joanne Kruchten, 20, and Michaela Murphy, 17, are still in the hospital and reportedly still in guarded condition. The five were returning from Batavia where they were all volunteered at a camp for children with disabilities, when the Jeep they were traveling in was struck by a semi-tractor trailer.