When students graduate, professors look at the promise of their future and hope the world will be kind to them. We never think their future might last only five short years.
Erika Hoefer’s (’05) dreams came to an abrupt end in the mountains of western Montana last Sunday when the private plane she was on crashed and all those on board were killed.
As I think of Erika, I remember her vitality. I know that might seem overly dramatic to say a few days after her death—forced, even. It’s not. Erika really did have both personal and mental energy. I remember the media kit she designed for Launch, one of the capstone projects of the magazine sequence her senior year. She was creative director, which meant she could combine her many interests in photography, graphic design, writing, editing, and magazine economics. The media kit demonstrated that she understood the latter—and not all students did, that’s for sure. But the kit had the most amazing graphic presentation—full of energy that made the facts accessible and enjoyable to pore over. I still have a copy of it and I look at it from time to time, remembering Erika and the rest of that talented staff. I am so proud of them all.
Of course, I remember her striking looks. That beautiful red hair, her tall, confident bearing. I am not a heightist, but I always liked when I could look a student in the eye, rather than having to bend down a foot or so. We tall women do have a bond.
Would Erika have thought, a week ago, that she would be so widely mourned? That those who studied and played and created with her at Drake would be devastated? Could she have foreseen that I would cry when I read the story about her airplane being found, dashing my hopes that she might have made it out alive? I suspect not.
Angela Renkoski, another of Erika's magazine professors, said this tragedy reminded her that Drake is very much a family to students, staff, and teachers. We both recalled Erika in an article in Drake Blue, written by her classmate Tory Olson. We have lost a member of our Drake family and, in our sadness, we can only imagine the grief felt by Erika's parents and other family members.
Erika knew I was thinking of her on the trip, because she posted on Facebook that she was going over Glacier National Park in a private plane. What an adventure, I thought. What a match for Erika. I hit the “like” button.
She headed out on that last trip, a young woman who always took life in her confident stride. Life did not respond with such generosity this time.
I am glad I reconnected with her on Facebook, glad that I could see how her life was unfolding, that the small and the large of it were rewarding. I wanted to keep reading about it, though.
I was hoping for some great photos of her trip over Glacier.
I was hoping for more than 27 years of Erika.
