Plane-crash victims remembered at memorial service

Talented.

Gifted.

Kind.

That's how the three victims of the Sept. 20 plane crash on Mount Liebig were remembered at a memorial service held Sunday at the Whitefish High School gymnasium.

The plane's pilot, Jim Long of Columbia Falls, and two other passengers, Forest Service electronic technician Ken Good and Forest Service employee Davita Bryant, both of Whitefish, were killed in the crash. Long was the contract pilot for the Forest Service, taking staff into Schafer Meadows in the Great Bear Wilderness.

Jodee Hogg, 23, of Billings, one of two people who survived the crash and hiked some 27 hours to safety, attended the service. The other survivor, Matthew Ramige, 29, of Jackson Hole, Wyo., is still hospitalized in Seattle.

Rod Bitney, who trained with Long, remembered his friend and fellow pilot as "gifted with the technical aspects of flying."

Long also had a doctorate in chemistry and was an accomplished businessman, Bitney noted.

"He was an exceptionally well-qualified pilot and he will be greatly missed," Bitney said.

Long moved to Columbia Falls in 1999 and was a board member and chief mission orientation pilot of Angel Flight, a non-profit organization that flies provides free transportation to medical treatment for people who cannot afford public transportation, or who cannot tolerate it for health reasons. He was also a captain in the local Civil Air Patrol.

Bryant was remembered as an accomplished mountain climber and friend. She climbed many peaks in Glacier National Park, said friend Julie Hughes.

Bryant climbed Cannon and St. Nicholas and Meritt with Hughes. Hughes said when she was injured on a climb on St. Nick, Bryant helped carry her pack.

"I loved Davita. There were so many kind things she did," Hughes said.

Hughes recalled Bryant's sunny disposition and humor. Bryant once tried to paint rays of sunshine on her ski boots with oil paint. But oil paint doesn't stick to plastic.

"It didn't matter what the weather was, Davita was our sunshine," Bryant said. "Take the best from Davita and put it in your life."

Good's son, Brad recalled his father not just as the man who raised him, but as his best friend.

Good thanked crash survivors Jodee Hogg and Matthew Ramige for being at Good's side and comforting him before he died.

Brad recalled his father's love for trains and said his family planned on spreading his ashes on the railroad tracks at a family memorial service on Tuesday.

Good was just a few months from retirement, but he "loved what he did," Brad said.

Brad noted the Forest Service truly was a family. He, too, had worked for the Service seasonally for three years.

Ann Bartuska the deputy chief of research and development for the Forest Service captured the spirit of the three in the words of John Muir: "The mountains are calling, and I must go."

Three American flags were given to the surviving family members. Hogg attended the ceremony and was comforted by family and friends. In a wheelchair, she waved to the crowd as she was taken out of the gym.