Family of horsemen remember brother who perished in fire

Ronnie Williams was one of two grooms who died during the barn blaze that killed 45 horses

Jim Noelker From left, Tara Scott, Diane Williams, Brooke William and Gregory Hartsook listen to "Amazing Grace" during the Barn 16 Memorial held at Lebanon Raceway Friday night. Diane Williams lost her brother, Ronnie Williams in the fire. Staff photo by Jim Noelker

ENLARGE PHOTO

Diane Williams works with one of the horses that she trains inside Barn 15, at the Lebanon Raceway. Ronnie Williams, her brother, was one of two people killed in the recent fire inside Barn 16. Staff photo by Ron Alvey

Ron Alvey Diane Williams works with one of the horses that she trains inside Barn 15, at the Lebanon Raceway. Ronnie Williams, her brother, was one of two people killed in the recent fire inside Barn 16. Staff photo by Ron Alvey

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By Tom Archdeacon, Staff Writer Updated 5:16 PM Sunday, December 13, 2009

LEBANON — Standing in the open door of Barn 15 — wearing earmuffs and layers of jackets and sweatshirts to cope with the numbing, early morning cold — she waited for the yearling she’d been working on to return from the race track.

Another driver had taken Preferred Stock for a mile and a half jog — a session that would leave the young horse with icicles of slobber hanging from his mouth, steam rising from his haunches — but for the moment her attention wasn’t directed at the animal or the elements or even the oval track.

Diane Williams gazed down the hill from her barn on the Lebanon Raceway backside to the spot of scorched earth where Barn 16 — a wood-framed, metal-sided structure the size of a football field — had stood just six days earlier.

“It gets harder and harder each day,” she said quietly. “Seeing where the barn was and now — it’s nothing but a big, empty hole.”

Not only in the landscape, but in everyone’s heart, especially hers.

Just then the barn radio filled the air with George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” — the classic song of a heartsick lover told on the day of his funeral.

Forget Christmas music, this was a perfect tune for the time.

Just before dawn on Saturday, Dec. 5, a fast-moving fire leveled Barn 16, killing 45 horses and two grooms, 48-year-old James “Turtle” Edwards and 55-year-old Ronnie Williams, Diane’s older brother.

He was the second of her brothers to perish at this Warren County track. Many years ago her brother Frances — “Skeet” as he was called — suffered a heart attack while in a sulky before a race.

Lebanon Raceway is tied to many of the greatest triumphs and tragedies in the Williams’ family. They have been harness horse owners, drivers, trainers and grooms here for some 50 years, back to the days of their patriarch, George Sr., who saw Ronnie, Diane and four of his other six kids follow him into the business.

Two of them, 50-year-old Diane and her 45-year-old sister Donna, still work daily at Lebanon. As sad irony would have it, just as the barn where Diane and her boyfriend, trainer Greg Hartsook, work looks directly down on the site where Ronnie died, Donna’s barn — where she assists her boyfriend, top Lebanon trainer Lamar Moody — is 40 feet on the other side of where Barn 16 stood.

And yet, Diane said, this is the perfect place for the Williams sisters to be:

“I figure we can remember Ronnie best staying right out here doing what we do each day. It’s the same thing Ronnie did. He loved being around the horses — so it’s kinda like keeping his love alive.”

‘He was one of the best trainers I ever saw’

Growing up around Oxford, George Sr. got a job teaching horseback riding at the stables at Miami University. Soon he worked his way up the ranks at the old harness track in Hamilton and in the 1950s he moved his operation to Lebanon Raceway.

While all three of his late sons — Skeet, Ronnie and George Jr. — followed in his footsteps, Diane especially made her mark.

There are few African American women with racetrack credentials like hers. In her career, she’s driven more than 2,000 races and won approximately 230. As a trainer, 11 of the 134 horses she took to the gate have won.

“I learned the same old fashion training ways that Ronnie did, but he was really good with the (horse) babies,” she said. “He just took his time with them and taught them and loved them so much. He was kind of a loner around people, but he loved horses.”

She said her brother, also a driver of some note years back, worked in barns across the U.S. and Canada on the Grand Circuit and spent several years with Harness Hall of Famer Gene Riegle from Greenville, who had many world champion pacers and trotters.

Eventually Ronnie returned to Lebanon and at the time of his death, he was working primarily for Kayne Kauffman, the 31-year old Arcanum-raised trainer, who stabled his horses in Barn 16.

Turtle worked for Kauffman too, and he and Ronnie became good pals and they befriended Jackie Winn, a 49-year-old gravely-voiced groom and track handyman from Boonesville, Ky.

A trio of hardscrabble eccentrics, they were together seven says a week, Winn said.

“Ronnie was pretty quiet and didn’t associate with a lot of people at the track, but he was one of the best trainers I ever saw and just loved those animals.

“Turtle was a little more outgoing, but that nickname fit him perfectly. I think he got it growing up in East St. Louis. He had one speed and it was slow. But you know he’d been to the big time, too. There’s not a track in the United States Turtle wasn’t on.

“And after we got done working each day, we’d play cards, drink beer and we always had to watch the Channel 12 news ... Oh boy, Turtle liked that little blond-headed woman on the news.”