Published July 17, 2026 at 12:58 PM CDT

A Kerrville man was killed early Thursday morning after flood waters swept away his home, his family confirmed.

John Mark Steward was inside his home when it was overtaken by water Thursday, his wife Jennie Steward posted to social media.

She had asked for help finding her husband in a Facebook post at 9 a.m. on Thursday. She was in Dallas during the flooding, she said.

Hours later, she announced he had been found dead.

“Mark, my love, I will forever be grateful for the beautiful years we shared together,” she wrote. “You made me be a better person. I love you all.”

Jennie Steward's mother, with whom she's staying in Dallas, declined to comment to KERA Thursday on her daughter's behalf.

Other family and friends remembered John Mark Steward as a loving husband and expressed gratitude to those who supported the family in the hours he was missing.

"He was a good man and he loved Jennie so," Steward's brother, Stephen, wrote on Facebook. "These types of tragedys are unexplainable yet they happened."

Steward graduated high school from Westlake High School in Austin in 1979. He played football, ran track and sang with his school choir — the Madrigals — according to a Facebook post by the Westlake athletics department. Dozens of former classmates expressed their sadness and shared memories of Steward.

"Westlake Nation lost a legend to the flood waters near Kerrville this morning," the post read.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday at least one person died overnight after being swept away in an RV in Comfort, a city southeast of Kerrville. It wasn’t clear if that person was Mark. KERA could not confirm Steward's identity or cause of death with law enforcement or the medical examiner Friday.

The Uvalde Police Department said a 74-year-old man died about four miles north of the city Thursday morning after his vehicle was swept up in floodwaters. The man “eluded law enforcement’s warnings not to proceed up the roadway,” police said.

Flooding in the area a year ago killed 130 people, including 25 campers and two counselors at Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp for girls, along the Guadalupe River.

Emmanuel Rivas Valenzuela and Dylan Duke are KERA's breaking news reporters. Got a tip? Email Emmanuel at erivas@kera.org or Dylan at dduke@kera.org.

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