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Sam Penrod reporting The victims of the Utah State van crash were honored today in Logan. This memorial was a bit unusual because the victims were remembered with the sound of machinery.
Noise fills the agricultural shop at Utah State University, as former members of the Ag Tech club come together, to remember the eight students and their instructor who died last month in a van accident.
Gary Straquadine, Vice Provost, Utah State University: "The alumni were coming up to us and saying, 'What can we do?' We said, 'Can you twist a wrench? Can you fix a tractor?"
All of this used farm machinery helps to give the students in the club experience in taking it apart, making repairs and putting back together. But now with no students able to fix the farm equipment, former students along with the instructors who founded the club in 1967, came to help.
Keith Hatch, Former Instructor: "It gives me closure to be here and see these projects finished up."
Darwin Jolley, Former Instructor: "The people who own the machinery need to have it finished so they can get it back."
Marlon Goble is a doctor, but came to honor his friend, the club's advisor Evan Parker He even wore Parker's lab coat today.
Marlon Goble: "The men of the Ag Tech department at this university are as close as a football team or athletic team, or any other group. They know each other very well."
While the accident is still very painful, seeing the tractors and machinery back in use on the farms will help to keep together a long-running tradition, in light of a terrible tragedy.
USU is now offering special "Live Strong" style bracelets, of Aggie blue and corn maze gold, in memory of the victims of the accident. Proceeds will go to a scholarship fund.
