A Father's Lasting Wedding Gift

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nebraskan's love fall weddings, and why not it's a beautiful
time of the year. Perhaps none of our four seasons
so inspire us as Autumn our senses feast on the
rich reds and oranges, crisp a blue skies, and as
a prelude to Thanksgiving, compels us to count the blessings
upon which God the Almighty showers us. Two young lovers

(00:21):
took vows in Omaha Friday night. They were surrounded by friends, family, admirers.
The evening's backdrop was a rich canopy of fall colors, smiles, laughter,
and high hopes for a wonderful future, a blessed future,
a future insured thanks to a single, selfless act of

(00:41):
uncommon courage from a young father. Twenty four years ago.
Dan Callahan was a guy's guy, Like all South Omaha boys.
He made life simple, made and kept friends easily, played hard,
loved what he loved the outdoors, Husker football family, worked
hard during the day, could be a good friend, son,

(01:01):
and later husband and father. After his roaring twenties, Mom
and Dad Callahan started pointing at their wristwatches when Dan
was around, the message time to settle down, find somebody
make a family. One day, a fetching brunette working in
Senator Bob Carey's office was back in town and to Dan,
search was over. Deana was the it girl. I remember

(01:26):
south Omaha guys don't shop, they buy. When they see
what they want, they go get it. Diana found out
south Omaha boys are hard to say no to. Well,
the new Callahans got busy. A year or so later
came Reagan, a practically perfect baby girl. Where Dan used
a rush home from his job at Ups to play
softball or watch the game p R. Post Reagan, it

(01:50):
was to load her into the stroller and take father
daughter walks along the safe and quiet Westgate neighborhood near
their home. One of those walks, on in June first,
two thousand and one, was the last time they were together.
Summer was underway in the West Side School district, so
the parks and playgrounds and swimming pools were crowded with neighbors.

(02:11):
It was also a Friday, popular day for high school
kids to climb behind the wheel and drive around town.
Sixteen year old John Hoover was one of them. He
picked up a couple of friends, three of them in
the car. Radio blaring, along with something else, a bottle
of vodka. Hoover had some, then a little bit more.

(02:32):
One of the dudes suggested, mischief. Let's see how many
drive by curbside mailboxes we can knock over with a
baseball bat key ingredient speed, Hoover hit the accelerator got
it up to fifty miles an hour, right around eighty
Second and Arbor Streets. But a mailbox wasn't the only

(02:53):
thing near that corner. Dan and Reagan were in the
intersection went over the hill. The teenagers piloting their killing
machine arrived. As Dan's eyes locked on the steel missile,
he heaved the stroller to his left. It rolled several
times before landing in a front yard for the second time.

(03:14):
Reagan Callahan's father gave her life. When the sirens arrived,
they found the toddler bruised, scratched, bleeding, crying but alive.
They found Dan with fatal injuries. His life was over
at thirty five. Now what of hers? What lay ahead
for Deanna and Reagan? How would this young single mom

(03:37):
guide a fatherless daughter through the traps and temptations of
growing up? Dan must have made a deal with somebody
because before long, God placed a kind, strong, single man,
Jeff Wagner into the Callahan's life. Jeff wasn't Dan, but
he was really really close. Did the job, and look
at how Reagan turned out. Stand out student, varsity cheerleader,

(04:00):
earned a college degree in marketing, which led to a
career in commercial interiors. Problem for every other guy in
Reagan's orbit, he had to look, act, and sound a
lot like Jeff and Dan, and that was non negotiable.
One broke through a future optometrist named Zach, who was
the guy waiting for her Friday night as her mother

(04:23):
and stepfather walked Reagan down the aisle. Now, Reagan and
Zach received many gifts Friday night, including one from a
simple guy who heard the truest call of fatherhood. While
dads give away their daughters on a wedding night, Dan
gave us hers a little bit sooner