Wasilla couple killed in collision

BY ANDREW WELLNER

Frontiersman

A Wasilla couple killed in a head-on collision in Nikiski over the weekend left behind a legacy of service to Alaska’s Church of the Nazarene.

“Paul (Trissell) was the longest standing Nazarene pastor in the Alaska District,” said Paul Hartley, the Alaska District Superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene.

An Alaska State Trooper press statement says that dispatchers started fielding multiple calls about the wreck at around 10:15 a.m. on Saturday. The crash was at Mile 18 of the Kenai Spur Highway. Troopers say that Paul J. Trissell, 68 and his wife, Pamela A. Trissell, 55, were driving a 2000 Honda CRV when a Peterbilt semi truck without a trailer attached crossed the centerline and hit them head-on.

Paul Trissell died on scene. Pam Trissell was taken to Central Peninsula Hospital where she later succumbed to her injuries.

Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said in an e-mail Monday morning that there is still no word as to why the other driver, Clifford Henderson, 35, of Anchorage, left his lane. Henderson was not injured in the crash. Troopers say they are still investigating, and so is the state’s division of Commercial Vehicle Enforcement.

Hartley said the Trissell’s weren’t even a mile from the church when the semi hit them. They’d been there that morning, coaching a group of teenagers who do Bible quizzing.

“They were here just encouraging their teams,” he said.

Trissell had been a pastor at the Nazarene’s Anchor Point church and been a children’s pastor at another Nazarene church in Wasilla at least five years ago, Hartley said. Trissell founded the West Valley Family Church of the Nazarene in a former strip club on the Parks Highway near Big Lake Road.

“I preached there yesterday and we had 70 plus people there,” Hartley said. “The church wants to continue with the vision that he had.”

He said as news of the crash spread he has been fielding calls at his office in Nikiski.

“I’ve gotten calls from around the world since this happened,” Hartley said.

Trissell had been a pastor, Hartley thought, in Florida and was trained in the Lower 48. Hartley said Trissell just made friends wherever he went.

“Pastor Paul had a real unique way of making everybody feel welcome,” Hartley said. “One of the things you can say about Paul is he never met a stranger.”

He said the mood in the church Trissell founded is a mixture of sadness and joy.

“They’re in shock and very sad but they know where their pastor and wife are at. There’s no question that their pastor and wife went to heaven,” Hartley said.

The Trissells were actually the third and fourth people to die in car crashes on slippery roads since snow started falling in Southcentral Alaska. Prior to that was a crash on Big Lake Road near Beaver Lake Road where Edward Irish Sr. lost his life in a head-on wreck Thursday. The first death of the season was also on the Kenai Spur Highway, but at Mile 8. Rylene Oskoloff, 14, of Kenai, was killed in that crash.

Authorities remind drivers to drive defensively and at speeds appropriate for road conditions.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.