Figure skaters from Brevard County won a total of 23 medals during competition at the Sunshine State Games Figure Skating Championships last weekend in Coral Springs.

A total of 15 local skaters won medals, including 12 gold, eight silver and three bronze.

Andrew Lavender of Rockledge, 16, earned three medals -- gold in the solo showcase, silver in the solo free skate novice and bronze in the novice short program. Lavender was skating in his 11th consecutive Sunshine State Games championships.

Katherina Kyriakoulis of Cocoa, 16, appeared in her fourth consecutive Sunshine State Games and won a pair of gold medals in bronze solo dance and pre-silver solo dance competition.

Amanda Acker of Titusville won three gold medals -- junior ladies short program, novice ladies free skating restricted and senior ladies free skating restricted, while Anastasia Kortjohn was first in the juvenile girls free skate. Aurora Abraham finished third in the juvenile girls free skate.

Nathaniel Wilson of Melbourne earned silver medals in the intermediate men's short program and intermediate mens free skate. Susan Roberts of Satellite Beach was first in the adult bronze ladies free skate restricted and in the compulsory moves competition. Morgan Bottesch topped competitors in the preliminary girls free skating restricted group.

Tommy-Jo Nyman of Melbourne was first in the gold showcase and third in the juvenile boys free skate. Mackenzie Costa of Rockledge won gold in the preliminary girls free skating unrestricted group.

Silver medals were captured by Bailee Hudson of Merritt Island (novice ladies free skating restricted), Julia Kinney of Merritt Island (open juvenile free skating restricted), Ashmia Jay of Rockledge (platinum showcase), Smantha Bell of Cocoa Beach (silver solo footwork) and Melanie Mendez of Viera (open juvenile girls free skating restricted).

More than 300 individual skaters and three teams competed in the annual games, which were held for the sixth straight year at Incredible Ice in Coral Springs.

"It was a very tough time for the country, as well as my family," said Nolan, who has put skating aside to concentrate on his studies. "It was really tough for my grandmother, who was 27 and had five children when she was widowed. She was supposed to be on the plane. My uncle was born late, just two weeks before the plane took off. So the doctor wouldn't let her travel."

Nolan, who has one of his grandfather's world medals and has visited his Indianapolis gravesite, researched and wrote a paper on the crash for school.

"I just use it as a source of inspiration for me," he said. "It meant a lot to me that it was a part of my family history."

'Why wasn't I on it?'

Barbara Roles Williams, another skating coach at UD, won a bronze medal in Squaw Valley and another at the world championships in Vancouver that same year. She retired from competitive skating before the 1961 world championships.

"I was asleep, and I had a phone call at 5 or 6 in the morning," she said. "The newspaper had called to tell me about it. It was shocking. I really couldn't take it in. It seemed like it wasn't real. I just kept thinking they were on a trip and would be back soon. I had to go to quite a few funerals."

After the crash, U.S. Figure Skating officials asked her to rejoin the team and compete in the rescheduled world championships, where she placed fifth.

"I knew everyone on the plane, actually," she said. "When I gave birth to my son, I named him after Deane McMinn, who was the team leader at that time."

Williams has been coaching for 40 years. For a long time after the crash, she was afraid to fly. Had she not retired, she probably would have been aboard Flight 548.

"It does make you feel guilty," she said. "Like, why were they on and why wasn't I on it? That's part of my driving motive for coaching, to try to give back. You feel you want to help further that issue for them."

The story of the return of competitive U.S. figure skating after the crash started with Williams' comeback, said Ludington, and took off in 1968 with Peggy Fleming's gold medal performance in Grenoble, France. Fleming's earlier coach, William Kipp, died in the 1961 crash.

"We all traveled on different planes from that point on," Ludington said. "They never took an entire team and flew them all at the same time."

The U.S. Figure Skating Memorial Fund was started after the crash to support competitive skaters.

Stacey Marsh, development director for U.S. Figure Skating, said the fund helped rebuild the U.S. figure skating team. Today, it supports younger competitive skaters and has given about $10 million to thousands of skaters in the past 50 years. Film proceeds will benefit the fund.

Ludington often thinks about how being short of cash prevented him from getting on that plane. He attended every world championship from 1957 to 1999, with the exception of 1961.

"There was only one that I ever missed, and that was the plane crash," he said.