Lake County foster parents Karen and Lonnie Stover lost a son, Trent, but he inspired a very big family

Lauren Ritchie | COMMENTARY

November 2, 2008

Karen Stover has had hundreds of children as a 23-year foster mom. But Wednesday evening, she lost the only child to whom she ever gave birth.

Trent Stover died when he lost control of his motorcycle and skidded beneath an oncoming SUV on U.S. Highway 441 in Leesburg. He was 31.

Trent's death has shaken the tightly knit world of foster parents in Lake County. It seems so wrong that Karen and her husband, Lonnie Stover, would lose their only natural-born son after all they have given over the years to protect the community's most fragile children.

The Howey-in-the-Hills couple has taken in foster children since 1985. More than 200 have passed through their hands, launched into independence with a dose of love.

Karen has served in the thankless role of president of the Lake County Foster Parent Association since 1989 with only two years off. It's like having the job of Chief Nurturer of Lake County -- a job that never ends. Someone is always in need.

Every year, Karen, 59, works with the A.B.A.T.E. motorcycle group to sponsor a toy ride to collect gifts for the more than 500 kids in foster care at the holidays. She works several 15-hour days before Christmas bagging toys and getting them to the right parents. When December has passed, she starts again because it takes a year to find people willing to provide for so many youngsters.

In her "free" time, she wields a lengthy list of contacts to help foster parents who are stuck in bureaucracy, and she takes the inexperienced ones under her wing to encourage them to stay with the program, which can be frustrating.

Trent's kindness laid path

The Stovers got into foster care because of Trent.

When he was 7 and a student at Tavares Elementary, Trent told his mom the school was having a clothes drive. Could he donate some of his clothes? Mom said yes.

"Later, I found out that he wasn't giving the clothes to the school -- he was giving them to a little boy who came in the cold in shorts and a T-shirt. And he was giving the boy his lunch money, too," Karen said.

Later that year, police came and took the boy, and Trent came home begging his mother to find his friend. The Stovers called the state and asked where the child had been taken. If you want to know, officials said, you have to become a foster parent.

And so they did.

Several years later, the state took the same boy from his parents again and placed him with the Stovers, who raised him for two years. The boy who grew to a man became a truck driver, married and moved to Tennessee. The Stovers stay in touch.

The kids just kept coming

Over the years, Trent continued to help his mom and dad with the foster kids. He took them to doctor appointments and all their various school activities.

The family adopted a daughter, Keri, whom Trent named. Later, they adopted a son, Chris, who is now 30, and unofficially adopted a second son, Donnie, who is 35. Donnie and Trent were brothers, fishing buddies and best friends, Karen said.

The family lived in a small two-bedroom home near Lake Square Mall that they kept expanding, then built a house in Howey because they needed more space for foster children. Officially or unofficially, the kids just kept coming as Trent moved through Tavares High and began playing football.

"We became the mom and dad of the football team. All the kids in the world came over. If any kid needed dinner, he got it. Trent would say, 'This kid's fighting with his mom and dad -- can he spend the night?' " Karen said.

Actor, alligator caller

After graduating in 1995, Trent played football at Wingate University in North Carolina but got injured and was forced to give it up. He worked as a bouncer in Ybor City bars in Tampa while he earned his associate degree in business from Hillsborough Community College.

He came home to Lake and started a property-appraisal business, but it was struggling, so he started working part time at Lowe's. That's where he was headed Wednesday when the accident happened.

Trent had some intriguing sides to him -- he always aspired to be an actor and had bit parts in a number of productions, including the 1999 movie Forever Mine and a television show in which he played a drug addict.

Sometimes, he would take the foster kids for a ride on his pontoon boat and call alligators.

"He had a way of calling gators -- he'd learned to imitate them," Karen said. "The kids got all excited."

'He was a good soul'

Trent was a "true Southern gentleman," his mother said. He would stop and change a tire for woman with a flat by the side of the road; he would move tortoises to safety when they were trying to cross the street; he has helped dozens of folks move; he cut grass at homes where the owners couldn't do it; and three years ago he adopted an abused dog -- he cut the collar off her neck, where it was embedded, and took her home.

"He was always giving. He was a good soul," Karen said. "I can't believe it happened so fast."

Lucky -- that's the name Trent gave his dog, who also had been burned with cigarettes -- is still waiting expectantly at the door for Trent to come home.

The Stover house has been busy since Trent's death. His fianc?e, Lori Klopp, is staying with a friend, but she's been back and forth. There's Donnie and Chris and Keri, who is developmentally disabled but lives by herself, drives a car and works part time at Target.

About 20 of Trent's classmates from Tavares High stopped by Thursday evening, and Lonnie Stover scrounged some wood and lit a bonfire -- one of Trent's favorite things to do on a winter evening. Mostly, they all just wanted to be close to mom and dad, which brings them closer to Trent.

No one turned away

Both Karen and Lonnie, 62, have had heart attacks -- Karen has had a valve replacement and a triple bypass. She isn't working outside the home anymore. Lonnie tried to retire from his job as a troubleshooting technician for Embarq but had to go back to work because the family couldn't make it financially.

They always have helped their foster children get established in life and have treated them as their own -- an expensive proposition that takes far more cash than the state pays the couple.

Karen said Trent didn't have insurance, and she doesn't know how they will pay for the funeral.

"We're modest people. We don't have a lot. But what we do have, you're more than welcome to have. Sit down and have a plate of dinner. We never turn anyone away," she said.

Saying goodbye

After years of giving, the Stovers are in a spot where they could use a hand. Anyone who wishes to help with Trent's burial may contribute to the Lake County Foster Parent Association, which will pass along donations labeled "Stover family." Mail to: c/o Treasurer Michelle Ferdon, P.O. Box 879, Tavares FL 32778.

Viewing is scheduled for 4 to 8 p.m. Monday at Steverson, Hamlin and Hilbish Funeral Home, 226 E. Burleigh Blvd., Tavares. The service is 3 p.m. Monday at the funeral home.

Afterward, Karen and Lonnie Stover will go home to the five teenage foster girls who live with them currently. They will keep going. The kids need them.

Karen said, "We try to raise them all like we raised Trent -- give back, love hard and be a Christian."