On the road into Echo, Oregon, this week, a marquee at a local business states, “Together we grieve as a community.”

The sign doesn’t reference who the community is grieving, but few in the town of 600 people need to be informed.

On Friday night, a large share of the town gathered at the gym in Echo High School to remember the lives of 59-year-old David McCarty and his three nieces, Rachel McCarty, 23, Faith McCarty, 21, and Katelyn Heideman, 21. A week earlier, all four died after a helicopter David was piloting in Arizona collided with a slackline and crashed.

Lindsay Murdock said word spread fast in Echo that day. Murdock had known the McCartys for decades, connecting with the family through their shared history in agriculture and by attending the same church. An instructional coach for the school district, Murdock knew Rachel and Faith both as classmates to her sons and as students she worked with.

“We were sitting in a basketball game last weekend and it was just heart wrenching to think that a family could be broken like that in an instant,” she said.

Earlier in the week, the district solicited family photos to display in a slideshow at the memorial. The community responded. Friday’s slideshow went on for a half-hour with dozens of photos, commemorating their lives in moments at athletic events, school dances and in David’s case, on boats and helicopters. The slideshow was soundtracked by music and by quiet weeping from the audience as friends and family wiped their eyes and embraced each other.

“My boys will always treasure that they got to be a part of such a beautiful life that those girls lived. Just one little piece,” Murdock said. “But when you look at the pictures and you see that they lived a great life, I think so many people here are just thankful that they got to be a part of it.”

As soon as the vigil ended, most of the people who attended moved to a neighboring gym to watch the girl’s high school basketball game.

Faith and Rachel once starred on that court, with Katelyn playing in nearby Hermiston. Friday’s game was a fundraiser for a scholarship fund established in the name of Tyler Campbell, an Echo High School student who died in a car crash in 2001.

Murdock said on nights like these, the school and the town don’t seem so small.

“At Echo, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “It’s all one school and I think that that’s probably why the ripple effect is huge. It’s a blessing and a curse.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/10/echo-helicopter-crash-mourning/