Remembering Steve Krueger, an Ocean Beach resident and UPS driver tragically killed a year ago, the beach community held an Oct. 9 sandcastle build and is also raising funds for a memorial bench to be dedicated in his honor.
The sandcastle event was led by the award-winner master carvers of IB Posse and took place near the main lifeguard tower. The final bench memorializing Steve will end up near the skate park overlooking the San Diego River by the bike path alongside Robb Field.
A year ago, on Oct. 11, Krueger tragically lost his life when a plane crashed into his UPS truck in Santee. After a 30-year career, he was less than a year away from his planned retirement.
Jeff Krueger, Steve’s brother said: “Steve would be so moved by the affection everyone has shown. Steven enjoyed life and would have wanted everyone to enjoy themselves. From me and my family, thank you for remembering my brother in this special way.”
The Krueger remembrance was spearheaded by Wendy Adelstein of The Philsophers Stone in OB. A friend and tenant of Krueger, Adelstein said, “Steve took such good care of his property and he enjoyed the water, so I know he’d love this landscaped seating area by the river.”
In conjunction with Krueger’s family, Adelstein has been shepherding the process of creating this Robb Field memorial and raising the funds to support the materials and the installation.
“In January, I started to get going on doing a memorial bench for him,” said Adelstein. “So, we set up a Go Fund Me, and the UPS union to which Steve belonged donated $1,000.”
A total of $2,561 has been raised in the GoFundMe memorial bench fund so far.
Adelstein contacted both the City Park and Rec Department and the River Park Foundation, to talk about requirements for securing a memorial bench for Krueger. Told by both organizations that neither had a memorial bench program, she persisted and continues to go through the public process of raising the estimated $5,000-plus cost for the bench, as well as securing proper placement of it in Robb Field next to the San Diego River.
“It (bench) has to be ADA-accessible,” noted Adelstein adding, “We had to get a crew out and have an assessment done to make sure grading and everything were right for the site to get it approved.”
Adelstein said her hope was to get all the groundwork laid for his memorial bench by the one-year anniversary of his death. When that didn’t happen, that is when the idea for the sandcastle build honoring him came about.
Adelstein is busy now working on submitting more paperwork to City Parks and Rec before they can get final approval for plans to actually build the memorial bench. “We expect that to be sometime in the next six months, hopefully by spring of next year,” she said.
Adelstein noted it has all been worth the effort.
“He went so tragically, and it sent shock waves through the San Diego community about how fleeting life can be,” she said adding, “I wanted to do something original as a fundraiser to draw attention to the GoFundMe.”
Adelstein added UPS management has offered to do a park cleanup and plant around the area where Krueger’s bench is being planned to be installed. Concluded Adelstein, “I just want Steve to be remembered and always have a place here in OB.”
