(Jul 17, 1981 ?)


[picture catption: Mr. and Mrs. John Boatright]


Boatrights Perish As Plane Crashes In Field Near Mead

By TIM CREWS
Times Staff Writer
  John and Jackie Boatright of Fort Morgan were killed about 5:10 p.m. Friday when their 1981 Piper Sequoia plane smashed into an alfalfa field aboutonw mile southwest of Mead
  Eyewitness Art Adler, who leases the alfalfa field, told the The Times this morning that the plane crashed nose down. He said the clouds were low and a hard rain was falling.
  "I was about two blocks away and just coming up the road following one of my grain trucks. It was just coming straight down out of the clouds, I couldn't tell whether the engines were going or not."
  Adler said that it was raining very hard and that the storm was "freaky." He said his son, Rich, had seen the plane from about one-half mile away and "it was kind of fluttering and the engines were rapping real hard."
  A spokesman for the Denver Flight Service Station said that Denver weather at the time was broken to overcast and that there was thunderstorm activity which might have contributed to the crash. He said, however, that no definite cause had yet been established.
  Boatright, 44, manager of Century Housing and with the firmsince its founding here 11 years ago, had been flying 1977, according to Deloris Carpenter, of the Fort Morgan Airport. The aircraft was brand new, Mrs. Carpenter said. She added that the Boatrights frequently flew to their ranch at Waldon, near Steamboat Springs.
  The white twin-engine craft left Fort Morgan about noon, Mrs. Carpenter said. As yet, no one has identified stops made by the plane between the time it left here and the time of the crash, roughly five hours.
  A reporter at the scene of the crash said that the wreckage was all in one place, stacked on top of itself. He said that the plane appeared to have hit straight down, as reported bu the eyewitnesss.
  Both occupants died instantly.
  Both the Boatrights were born in Bacon County, Ga., Boatright on Jan. 28, 1937 and Mrs. Boatright Dec. 5, 1937, and they were raised and attended public schools there before being married in Bacon County My 19, 1957.
  Boatright was in mobile home construction most of his adult lifem and the family moved to Fort Morgan in April 1970, where he assumed the post of vice president and general manager of Century Modular Homes.
  The Boatrights owned Pete's Tack

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Boatrights Perish As Plane Crashes In Field
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Shop, which Mrs. Boatright managed, and he was active in modular home developments, including one near Parachute.
  Boatright was chairman of the board of the Flying X Ranch in Wyoming and was a member of Oasis Lodge No. 67 A.F. & A.M., Scottish Rite Consistory, Fort Morgan Elks and the Morgan County Fair Board, and Mrs. Boatright was a member of Eastern Star.
  They are survived by four daughters, Mrs. Nancy Hopper, Miss Teresa Boatright and Miss Erika Boatright, all of Fort Morgan, and Mrs. Debbie Horton of Walden; one son, Douglas of Fort Morgan, and two grandchildren.
  In addition Mrs. Boatright is survived by a sister, Mrs. Ellen Barber of Bacon County, and three brothers, Damon McKenzie of Brunswick, Ga., and Johnny and Carter McKenzie, both of Bacon County.
  Boatright is also survived by two sisters, Mrs. Margaret Hall of Hazelhurstm Ga., and Mrs. Caroline Jean Mathews of Baxleym Ga.; six brothers, Don of Macon, Ga., Franklin of Fort Morgan, Bobby, Archie and Troy, all of Bacon Countym and Stevie of Baxley, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Truitt Boatright of Bacon County.
  Funeral services will be conducted Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the United Methodist Church with Rev. Allen Unger officiating. Burial will be in Memory Gardens. Friends who wish may contribute to the Fort Morgan Hospital.