Honeymoon

Barbara Ann Edwards was only 18, a tiny girl with a winning smile--especially when she looked at U.S. Air Force Academy Cadet Ules Lee Barnwell Jr., 22, of Greenville, S.C. But in the year that they knew each other, neither Barbara Ann nor Lee Barnwell had much to smile about.

They had met and fallen in love in March 1958 at an academy dance, which Barbara Ann attended on crutches because of a foot broken in a skiing accident. By last December they were engaged, looking forward happily and hopefully to Lee Barnwell's graduation, when they could be married. Then their troubles began. Barbara Ann's foot did not heal properly, and she entered a Denver hospital for surgery. When she awoke from anesthesia after the operation, Air Cadet Barnwell was at her bedside. He had borrowed a car and driven from Colorado Springs to be with her. In so doing, he had broken academy regulations against driving--and as punishment he was restricted to the academy for the next four months, all that remained before graduation. Recalled Barbara Ann: "I would stand on a hill and wave my handkerchief at him. He used a pair of binoculars to see me. Those were our dates."

When she learned that Jordan's King Hussein was planning to visit the Air Force Academy, Barbara Ann sent him a telegram, begging him to grant Barnwell amnesty during his stay--a right traditionally given visiting heads of state by U.S. military academies.* But a snowstorm forced Hussein to cancel his tour of the academy; he wired his regrets and best wishes for a happy marriage.

Not until June 2, the day before the Air Force Academy's first graduation exercises, were Barbara Ann Edwards and Lee Barnwell reunited. Two days later, after commencement, commissioning, and a full-dress, crossed-swords wedding at Denver's Christ the King Roman Catholic Church, the couple began their honeymoon. Last week, driving through southwest Colorado toward New Mexico on Colorado Highway 172, Barnwell lost control of his new, red MG roadster. The car overturned, throwing both Barbara Ann and her husband clear. "I'm O.K.," Lieut. Lee Barnwell groggily told a state trooper. "Take care of my wife." The trooper looked down at Barbara Ann, dead on the ground. Said he softly: "She's in good hands."

* Visiting heads of state have recently become so commonplace that discipline has suffered because of their frequent amnesties. Last month the service academy commandants met to seek a solution. Result: henceforth, amnesty will be granted only to minor offenders.

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