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Friends say pilot who died in crash was expert on riverboats

By ASSOCIATED PRESS   Thursday, May 8, 2008 - 10:05 a.m.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Friends are remembering Dennis Trone as a consummate pilot, both in the riverboats he steered along the Mississippi River and in his home-built airplane.

The 77-year-old Illinois man died Monday when his plane crashed after taking off from the Brodhead Airport near Madison.

Trone was known for building the riverboats he operated. One, the Julia Belle Swain, has been featured in books and films and now is used in tours of the Mississippi from La Crosse.

Art Thieme sang folk music on Trone’s paddle boat tours of the Illinois River. He says Trone was cool in a crisis and just took over.

Tina Keenan of the Great River Steamboat Company in La Crosse says Trone was personable and knowledgeable and had consulted on the TV movie “Life on the Mississippi.”

Funeral arrangements are pending at the Worthington Funeral Home in Rushville, Illinois.




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