Dec 10, 2007 9:18 am US/Eastern
Friends Say Goodbye To Daredevil Evel Knievel
Funeral set for 1 p.m. in Butte, Montana
BUTTE, Mont (CBS4) ―
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Evel Knievel, motorcycle daredevil, arrives at his wedding to Krystal Kennedy, Las Vegas, Nevada, Nov. 19, 1999.
AP
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Daredevil Evel Knievel in 1974.
AP
Daredveil Evel Knievel will be remembered Monday at a service in his Montana hometown.
Friends and family of the late Evel Knievel hurried to prepare Butte's largest indoor venue for a final goodbye to a hometown hero.
"There's a right way, there's a wrong way and there's Evel's way," longtime friend Bill Rundle said Sunday at the Butte Civic Center. "You do it Evel's way."
Butte residents will celebrate the life of the legendary stuntman who sped motorcycles over the local mine dumps as a boy. Years later, spectacular and sometimes near-fatal stunts made Knievel an international icon who believed it was better to try and fail than to not try at all.
The public viewing will be followed by a service with the Rev. Robert H. Schuller of California's Crystal Cathedral officiating. Afterward, a funeral procession will make its way through town along a six-mile loop known as Evel Knievel Way.
Burial at Mountain View Cemetery will be private.
Knievel died Nov. 30 in Clearwater, Fla., after years of failing health. He was 69.
The annual Evel Knievel Days festival draws tens of thousands to the city. Knievel frequently attended the event, though as a frail man who'd lived through too many motorcycle crashes and other ordeals, including a liver transplant.
Over the years, Knievel returned often to Butte, an industrial city with a large Irish influence. Some 35,000 people live in the southwestern Montana town that, in many ways, contrasts with the state's usual image of wide-open spaces, trout streams and cowboys. In Butte, visitors can pay $2 to see an old mining pit now filled with polluted water or take a guided tour of old brothels.
Knievel made detailed plans for his funeral. The arrival of the hearse Sunday was greeted by a shower of fireworks.
"He was right up there with Elvis and Sinatra," said George Riojas of Butte. Riojas said he admired Knievel's ability to maintain an enduring image even when "we're always itching for a new face," and his loyalty to his hometown long after he moved away.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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