A second employee has died following an explosion at the NaturPak manufacturing facility in Janesville last week. His name was Alex Perkins. The Rock County Medical Examiner identified the other employee, Roberto Martinez, on Wednesday. Perkins died over the weekend after being hospitalized with burns sustained during the explosion. Friends say Perkins made an indescribable impact on the cheer community in the Rockford-area.
“He came and immediately, within months, was a part of our family and a part of the cheerleading world. In this area, he made a name for himself. I bet you could ask almost anybody in the cheer world here and they would know Coach L,” his longtime friend Jordan Matthews said.
Jordan, along with Michael Matthews and Ashley McMullin call themselves his “chosen family”. They’ve been with him since he first moved to the Rockford area around 2011. He had been a fixture in the regional cheerleading and judging scene for 15 years. During that time, he helped establish the cheer organization Wicked Elite…