On Monday Oklahoma State University mourned the loss of four members of the Cowboy family, women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke, assistant coach Miranda Serna and alumni Olin and Paula Branstetter.
The four were killed when the single-engine Piper PA-28-180 they were traveling in crashed Thursday afternoon near Perryville, about 45 miles west of Little Rock, Ark. Olin Brandstetter was piloting the plan.
The university commemorated the four at a ceremony in Gallagher-Iba Arena at 1 p.m. The Student Government Association also hosted a candlelight vigil in the Student Union Ballroom at 8 p.m. Four wreaths were hung on Chio clock to remember the four lives lost.
Thousands of alumni, students, staff and faculty attended the afternoon ceremony. Also among the crowd were former women’s OSU players, as well as, the current OU women’s basketball team and its head coach Sherry Cole. Other coaches and players from the Big 12 were all in attendance, such as Baylor’s Kim Mulkey and Texas A&M’s Gary Blair.
President Hargis ended the ceremony with a message of hope for the OSU family.
“The holes in our hearts today are just as empty as those 10 years ago,” Hargis said. “Nothing ever fills them up. You never get over it; you just have to through it.”
Hargis left the stage with a message particularly for the women’s basketball team, words he thought its coaches might say to them at a time like this.
“We can’t be on the court with you,” he said. “You’re going to have to do it yourself. And just before they’d turn and leave us, I bet they’d say, ‘We love you. And we believe in you.’
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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at OK State chapter.