Kyle Rice’s neighbors in Pleasant Hill might know him for the specialty COFFINS license plate on his truck or the haunted house he throws for the neighborhood every Halloween.

Rice has a deep interest in funeral antiquing: His basement features a collection of undead “oddities” and memorabilia like giant rulers advertising funeral homes, vintage embalming fluid bottles, skull drills, a Grateful Dead toy hearse, and an old embalming surface now used as a coffee table.

He also leads the area Graveyard Ghouls Hearse Club and has his own real-life hearse: a 1971 Cadillac Miller-Meteor that he’s planning on driving to Hearsefest in Michigan for a world record-breaking parade later this year.

Now, Rice’s passion has opened an opportunity to help families impacted by the EF2 tornado that tore through Pleasant Hill in April, damaging nearly 20 homes and injuring one person.

He and a group of volunteers, including “The Cemetery Guy,” have reset and repaired dozens of headstones that the storm damaged or toppled in the city-owned Oakwood Cemetery.

“It wasn’t really a question,” Rice said.

Dozens of headstones tipped over in Pleasant Hill cemetery

The April 26 tornadoes devastated communities and households across Nebraska and Iowa, including the tiny town of Minden near Council Bluffs.

The storm hit Oakwood Cemetery on the southwest side of Pleasant Hill, ripping trees apart, spreading debris and knocking over several dozen headstones. Rice, who lives down the street from the cemetery, documented the damage and posted the images on Facebook. He wanted to help.

Rice counted roughly 50 headstones that fell over, but he didn’t have the equipment or expertise to pick them back up, so he connected with Kelly Penman Jr., of Carlisle, also known as The Cemetery Guy, who preserves and cleans forgotten headstones in his spare time.

Soon, a team was in place to hoist the headstones back up using a pulley device on a tall tripod. Volunteers ended up working on roughly 60 headstones, including some that may have been in poor condition before the storm.

Penman said his work started about nine years ago ago when he was doing genealogy work and found family stones that had fallen over and sunken in the mud. He expanded his efforts all around Warren County with a team and began repairing damaged stones from many decades ago.

The stones themselves can weigh hundreds of pounds, if not half a ton.

“I don’t care who you are, but you would never be able to move this thing ever,” Rice said, pointing to a headstone in the cemetery during a tour with Register reporters.

They also reapplied sealant between the headstones and the bases to keep out moisture.

Public works crews and cleanup volunteers also have helped the cemetery recover by removing debris, and the city said it will try to save as many trees as possible.

Several families have thanked the volunteer cemetery team in person and online for restoring their loved ones’ headstones.

Penman said the work is in his nature: He was in the military, he’s served as a volunteer firefighter and now he’s a nurse. Preserving cemeteries for future generations became a passion.

Of the team’s work in Pleasant Hill, he said, “With Mother’s Day coming up and Memorial Day, we wanted to try and get those back together so people could respect those people appropriately and not have to deal with the grief of ‘How am I going to afford this?’ or ‘Who even does this?'”

Rice is also raising money via GoFundMe to help Victor Muñoz Sr. after his late son’s gravestone, featuring photos of Victor Jr., a heart and cross, was destroyed in the storm. So far, Rice has raised over $3,500 to replace the memorial.

It’s not the first time Rice has helped restore a headstone to its rightful place: He has worked this year to return the headstone of Charlie Walrod, a 4-year-old who died in 1887, to a cemetery in Knierim after the stone mysteriously appeared in an antique store, he said.

Rice did work at Oakwood Cemetery even though his own home sustained some damage to the roof, trees and fencing from the storm. Drywall and shingles in multiple colors from other homes ended up in his yard.

During the storm, he waited in the meat cooler in the local Hy-Vee and left his truck in a car wash across the street. His hearse was in a shop in Albia and was unharmed.

More: Pleasant Hill issues proclamation to help residents more easily rebuild after EF2 tornado

Some homes in Pleasant Hill appear beyond repair, including one on a cul-de-sac near Rice’s house with the roof ripped off and an “RIP” headstone pasted near the front door.

Tornado recovery and cleanup continue in Pleasant Hill

Through May 14, public works staff had collected about 8,350 cubic yards of vegetative debris and about 1,000 cubic yards of other debris, according to the city of Pleasant Hill’s final official recovery recap. The last day of collection was expected to be May 28.

City public works staff had put in 924 hours of work in the recovery; community development staff in parks, communications, buildings and other areas put in 262 hours; police had 160 hours; and fire department staff contributed 96 hours.

City staff and state officials have been evaluating trees across the city to determine how many more are hazardous and should be removed for safety. The city is planning to replant and restore Pleasant Hill’s tree canopy.

Meanwhile, officials with the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been canvassing homes in Pleasant Hill as more options open for financial assistance to help residents recover from the tornado.

FEMA and the Small Business Administration have been authorized to provide assistance to Clarke, Harrison, Mills, Polk, Pottawattamie, Ringgold, Shelby and Union counties, which were impacted in the April tornadoes, according to a news release from Gov. Kim Reynolds, after President Joe Biden approved a request from the state for a major disaster declaration.

Those impacted by the April tornadoes can visit DisasterAssistance.gov, call 800-621-3362 or download the FEMA app to begin applying for assistance. Information about possible further financial assistance from the SBA is available at www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance.

FEMA also is working to find a location for a disaster recovery center in Polk County.

Chris Higgins covers the eastern and northern suburbs for the Register. Reach him at chiggins@registermedia.com or 515-423-5146 and follow him on Twitter @chris_higgins_

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Pleasant Hill man helps restore dozens of tornado-damaged headstones