KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A metro native who worked as a helicopter pilot in Oregon was killed in a crash last weekend.
Friends will gather to remember him on Saturday, Oct. 2 at 2 p.m. at Unity Temple on the Plaza.
Doug Doty died September 20. The crash was outside of Hillsboro, Ore.
He was a helicopter flight instructor for Hillsboro Aviation with over 1000 hours of experience.
A student, Chris Hagner, was also killed in the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into the cause of the crash. It is not known who was piloting the helicopter.
Doty grew up in Olathe and went to Olathe South High School, then the University of Kansas.
Prior to moving to Oregon, he lived in Kansas City, Mo., with his wife Jesika Doty. They have a small child, and had been planning to move back to the Kansas City area.
His wife wrote this statement:
"My husband was my everything. I find it hard to describe Doug besides telling you where he was born or where he was from but those things don’t matter. It is the person that he was and the memory of him that we carry through our lives that matters most. I, like many others, fail to find the words that encompass who he was completely.
Instead of trying to find a few words, I would like to share a portion of a letter that he wrote to me. A portion of a letter that would become our vows and are the exact words that I feel right now. I think that you will learn more about him and the person he was from his words than anything I could say."
"I don’t know how many times I have found myself smiling when a thought of you passes through my mind. It is not a smile of satisfaction. It is not a smile of accomplishment. It is a smile of wonderment. It is a smile of awe.
I taste beauty and glory in that smile. I taste dharma and I taste hallelujah! I smile because I feel the wheel of the universe spinning inside of me and realize I am in that place where I belong. My life and my love are yours, in this life and the next."
Doug to Jesika in a letter
September 2003
