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Remembering the Four: On Six-Year Anniversary, OSU Unveils Touching Tribute

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6 years ago

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It’s been six years. That’s crazy, right? Six years since a plane crashed in Arkansas carrying four Oklahoma State folks, and a lot of people’s lives were changed forever.

I wrote about my unique relationship to Kurt Budke and Oklahoma State women’s hoops at the time. Nothing has changed. That was a special time in my life and one I look back on fondly. I always will. Coach Budke was the best, and I got to experience at least a little bit of that, if only from a distance.

On Thursday, OSU unveiled its official tribute to him, Miranda Serna and Olin and Paula Branstetter outside of GIA next to the old football practice field. It looks fantastic, even if it’s not something you ever want to have to build. Burns Hargis, Mike Holder and Jim Littell spoke at the unveiling.

“While we lost these beautiful people way too early, said Hargis, “they made a lasting impact on this university and we’ll never forget them.”

He’s not wrong. Yeah, it’s just sports, but Coach Budke flapping his wings in a juiced GIA with Dez bouncing in the stands and Andrea Riley hanging nearly half a hundred on OU. That was as good as it gets if you’re an Oklahoma State fan of anything.

“In essence it will represent the gateway into Gallagher-Iba Arena, a place that meant so much to each of these individuals … it’s so important to our OSU family,” added Holder.

Loss never disappears completely. It waxes and wanes, and it affects you differently at different times in your life. It re-shapes trajectories and challenges your worldview on a daily basis. I am glad for the memorial that OSU has built. It’s awesome. But I’m also hopeful that four statues don’t replace the spirit of the thing.

Most of us as OSU fans, our lives are different, if only the tiniest bit, because this happened. I am convicted to think differently about life and death and their implications because this happened. I just am. I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t be. So remember the four, yes, but don’t let it terminate there. Don’t let the story end with a memory, but rather let the entire narrative live on and linger in a future where none of us are ever neutral and all of us are always changing.

We memorialize people and events because it provides a warm blanket for those whose breath was taken away in a second by an unimaginable event. This also serves as a springboard, like Holder and Hargis spoke of, into the future. Because a past without memories is calloused, cold and desolate, but a future without hope is much, much worse.

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