Four die in two-vehicle accident

A 17-year-old Libby boy, a 59-year-old Columbia Falls woman and her two grandchildren were killed Saturday evening in a two-vehicle collision near Happy's Inn.

Montana Highway Patrol Trooper Bryce Ford said Jacob K. Colclough, 17, of Libby was driving westbound on Highway 2 in a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe at 6:10 p.m., when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel.

His vehicle crossed over the eastbound lane and across the fog line. When the vehicle struck the edge of the road, Colclough apparently awoke and jerked the steering wheel to get back into the westbound lane. But the driver overcorrected and the vehicle turned sideways and started to roll.

Approaching in the opposite direction was Ramona Bauer, 59, of Columbia Falls, in a 1996 Ford Aerostar Van. Colclough's vehicle rolled three-quarters of a turn, Ford said, before striking the van.

The collision occurred just east of Happy's Inn at mile marker 72.2 in the vicinity of the Kicking Horse Saloon.

Passengers in the van were Bauer's 12-year-old granddaughter Jade Ulrich and 13-year-old grandson, Jeremy Dodge- Sanders.

Ulrich and Dodge-Sanders were cousins. Dodge-Sanders went to Kalispell Middle School this year, but had previously attended Columbia Falls Junior High, said school principal Dave Wick. Ulrich attended the junior high. Both were seventh graders.

The three were coming home from a Little Guy wrestling tournament in Libby where Dodge-Sanders had wrestled when the accident occurred. Colclough was apparently returning from National Guard training.

Wick said a crisis team of counselors was providing help for students at the junior high and a counselor was attending all of Ulrich's classes, talking with students about the tragedy.

Ford said Colclough was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from his vehicle. All three people in the van were wearing seatbelts, but Colclough's went airborne and landed on Bauer's vehicle.

Bauer was a technician at Semitool. All told she had eight grandchildren and loved being with them, said Lisa Ulrich-Ayidomihou, Jade's mother.

"She was very close to them," she said. "She took care of the kids. She was doing what grandmothers do."

Jade Ulrich loved horses and being outdoors. She was taking her hunter education course so she could hunt in the fall with her family. Dodge-Sanders also enjoyed hunting. Last fall, in his first year, he bagged a buck and an elk, family members noted. A day prior to the accident the family had celebrated Lisa Ulrich's wedding.

Ford said neither alcohol nor speed was a factor in the accident. All four were pronounced dead at the scene.

At the junior high, students were planning on releasing balloons in Jade's memory on Friday. A memorial service is planned for the Columbia Falls victims at 1 p.m. Saturday at the county fairgrounds Country Kitchen.