Loved ones mourn slain valet drivers
An 18-year-old Bellaire High School graduate was among three valet drivers killed Friday night when a motorist fleeing Houston police struck them as they walked along a road in southwest Houston.
Fnan Measho was the breadwinner for his three young siblings and his parents, according to a fundraising page organized to cover funeral expenses and other costs. He was active in his Eritrean church and was studying criminology at the University of Houston-Downtown, hoping to become a police officer “to help people and the city … he loved so much.”
Measho and two co-workers — all valets for a nearby bar, Prospect Park — were run down on Fairdale Lane by a driver police said was going more than 60 mph on the residential street. The driver fled after an officer spotted him doing doughnuts and flipped on his lights.
After striking the valets, the driver crashed into a ditch; he and a passenger remained hospitalized Sunday, Houston police spokesman John Cannon said, with injuries that were not lifethreatening. No charges had been filed as of late Sunday, and the suspect has not been identified.
Sunday evening, Prospect Park identified the other two men killed as Eric Orduna and Nick Rodriguez. Their families could not be reached for comment late Sunday.
The heartbreak and anger Measho’s friends felt at the manner of his death did not overshadow their memories of his infectious joy, a trait they said belied an intense work ethic and a devotion to his family and the three siblings with whom he shared a bedroom.
Shardrick Johnson coached Measho for the three years he competed on Bellaire’s track and cross country teams, and quickly gave him the nickname Motormouth. “He always was talking,” Johnson said, laughing — to teammates, classmates, coaches; Johnson could pick up his voice in a crowded hallway without laying eyes on him.
“He used to always ask me, ‘Coach what is it going to take to
get on varsity?’ I’d say, ‘We’ve got a long line of people right now. You’re going to have to work,’ ” Johnson recalled telling Measho in his sophomore year, his first on the team. “Came back, junior year he was on varsity. By his senior year he was one of my top runners. A very hard-working kid. I’m going to miss him.”
Dylan Ballard, a 17-year-old senior at Bellaire, was Measho’s training partner for years, each matching the other’s pace at every practice. They became fast friends. Still, Ballard seemed perpetually to owe Measho $5 — he kept finishing 2 seconds behind him at races. When Ballard finally bested his friend, the pair called Ballard’s mother together to share the news.
“He was probably the greatest person I’ve ever met,” Ballard said. “He was just such a positive, goofy guy. He was really funny, always talking and always making people smile.”
Even on mornings when Measho couldn’t catch a ride to practice and had to run an extra two miles from his home to meet his teammates at 5 a.m., he was upbeat, cracking jokes, while his peers longed for sleep. Or there was the meet last season, Ballard recalled, that the Cardinal squad came across a dominant runner from another school, an intense kid who gave curt answers when other athletes tried to chat.
“Fnan came up to him and had him laughing and smiling,” Ballard recalled. “Fnan was able to bring the best out in everyone. He was someone I was really proud to be a friend to. He made everyone happy and joyful. It rubs off on you.”
Ballard, with two teammates, visited the Measho family at their church on Sunday, and the trio expected to visit the site of Measho’s death Monday. Ballard said he plans to get a bracelet with his friend’s name on it, hoping to draw from it the same encouragement he drew from their bond.
“He’s definitely someone I looked up to, because I was struggling with balancing my workload — and I know he was doing the same thing as me, except he was not as fortunate as I am,” Ballard said. “Whether it was running, with his family, with school or with church, he was really just great at everything he did, and he made everyone around him a better person because of how inspiring he was.”