Missoula News

Montana Tragedy

Journalism Scholarship Announced to Honor UM Grad Killed in Plane Crash

By Bea Gordon, 7-06-10

Melissa Weaver celebrates her last night at the Kaimin, UM's student-run newspaper, in 2009. Photo contributed by Whitney Bermes.

Just over a week ago, Billings native and University of Montana graduate Melissa Weaver died at 23 in the sightseeing plane crash that also killed Erika Hoefer, Brian Williams and Sonny Kless. Now her friends, coworkers and family are looking to keep Weaver’s passion for journalism living with a scholarship at UM’s School of Journalism.

Weaver was an ‘09 graduate of the school and had gone to work that December for the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, MT, where Hoefer was also a reporter. The two were enjoying their day off with Kless, a recent UM environmental science and communications grad who piloted the plane, and Williams, who was enrolled in UM’s law school.

While at the journalism school, Weaver made quite an impression on her fellow students. One, Bill Oram, recently wrote of his friend, “At our age, we don’t produce perfect work and Melissa’s was frequently far from it. But damn, she was close. She had this sparkle, one that told you she was a step ahead of you and ready to blow your mind with an intelligent, witty thought.”

While arts and nature were her real passion, Weaver had accepted a position reporting on courts and cops for the Inter Lake, a move toward hard news that surprised Oram. “She was too creative, too free-spirited. I didn’t see her sitting through long trials. I saw her climbing mountains and, inevitably, boarding small airplanes and seeing the world.”

Although Kless was an experienced pilot who was familiar with the area, according to published repots, he had never taken four people out in his plane before. According to an article in the Missoulian, the extra weight in combination with the hot summer air at high-altitudes are among the aspects of the crash being investigated by the National Transportation and Safety Board.

But those who remember Melissa are not ready to talk about her solely within the context of the accident that took her life. Rather, they remember a vibrant young woman with a passion for life and an upbeat attitude that left its mark on those she encountered.

“I was the editor of the paper when she worked there,” said Sean Breslin who remembers Weaver as “incredibly focused on the work that she needed to do. She never seemed to get down about it or stressed out about it like many others, including myself.  She was always happy to be working, happy to be writing, happy to make that extra phone call.”

Breslin and others led the drive to create the scholarship. Says Breslin, “This scholarship is something that I think a lot of people that knew her really wanted to do to commemorate her and I wanted to get the ball rolling. We’ve all just been trying to help out her family in any way possible.”

If interested, donations for the scholarship can be sent to: University of Montana Foundation, P.O. Box 7159, Missoula, MT, 59807 or made online. Please make sure to specify your donation as “Melissa Weaver Scholarship — J School.”

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