A passion for taking risks may have caused the death of a 21-year-old Laketown Township resident.
Roland Huebner died in a high-speed motorcycle crash on Tuesday night after he lost control of his 1987 Kawasaki motorcycle while traveling south on 42nd Avenue in Georgetown Township. He was on his way home to Grandville, where he had been staying at the time.
Witnesses said Huebner slid through the "T" intersection at Fillmore Street and into a ditch and wooded area, according to the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department.
The Ottawa County medical examiner pronounced the Holland resident dead at the scene from injuries sustained in the crash, sheriff's Lt. Steve Kempker said. Huebner was wearing a helmet.
His father, Fritz Huebner, who owns Plascore factories in Zeeland and Germany, said that Roland always pushed things, but a person would want to be with him if there was trouble because he always knew how to figure things out.
"He had the gift of three-dimensional viewing and quickly figuring out how things worked -- a very clever kid," his father said.
Roland had recently transferred to Grand Valley State University to finish a degree in engineering after three years at Michigan Tech in Houghton. He spent last summer at Goethe Institut in Freiburg, Germany, where he learned German.
He was a 1999 graduate of Holland High School.
He also enjoyed sailing, hockey, windsurfing on Lake Michigan, and had a fondness for cars and motorcycles.
"He pushed it, but as an individual within the community of his peers, he was a fine guy," Fritz Huebner said."I really admire him for that."
His father said that he had heard there were mechanical problems with the motorcycle from a friend of his son's, including a problem with a sticking throttle, but said that he hadn't confirmed whether that was the cause.
Fritz Huebner said Roland bought a motorcycle when he was 16 or 17 years old, but his father doubled the amount that Roland paid for it just so that he would get rid of it. Huebner didn't approve of his son's new motorcycle, but figured that his Roland was older and could better handle one.
Fritz Huebner said that his son was familiar with the route he took on Tuesday and was on his way home from Grand Valley's Allendale Campus when the accident occurred at 8:37 p.m.
