It has been one year since the tragic bus accident took Heather Christensen from among us and we feel a need to further express the American Fork Band’s feeling of gratitude and love for all that has transpired since that horrific night and to give an update on how the band and students are healing.

    This past year has seemed like a dream and the cards, e-mails, posters and letters have truly touched our souls with kindness and compassion. We wish everyone could have walked into our band room the week following the accident and witnessed the outpouring of support through cards and letters that lined our walls and the flowers that adorned tables around the room.

    Expressions of love and support from bands, individuals and businesses from around the world, covered all the walls of our band room.

    Even now, a year later, we continue to receive cards and letters expressing their thoughts and best wishes to our students. We have tried to individually respond and thank those people but realize we will never be able to fully do so. These kind words have calmed us greatly and have helped us beyond measure, thank you all for your kindness and prayers in our behalf. The students are healing well. Most physical injuries have healed but the emotional scars will be with us for awhile. We are amazed at how resilient we are and have learned that life must go on and that we need to press forward as Heather wants us to. We have become better people because of what we experienced.

    There are so many that we want to thank including those good Samaritans who stopped at the scene to offer immediate assistance, the first responders and Idaho State police who were so fast getting on site and for their care of our students, my band staff and chaperones on the scene who handled themselves with utmost professionalism and cared for our students as if they were their own children, the hospital staff in Pocatello who were prepared for the worst when we arrived and who so lovingly and professionally took care of our injured students, the administration and band teachers at Idaho State University who met our bus at the hospital and offered food, lodging and anything else we needed during our stay in Pocatello, the Pocatello police and county sheriff who kept me appraised of what was going on at the crash site, my friends and colleagues in Idaho who helped our students and me personally in so many ways, the bus company who provided an extra bus to us and to the UTA who had busses waiting at the Utah border to bring us the rest of the way home, to my family and AF football team who provided hot chocolate in the early hours when the busses finally arrived home, to the Lake Shore bus company who have been supportive throughout this entire ordeal, to our AFHS counselors who have held many sessions to help our students as a group and so lovingly helped the individuals who are still struggling, the students, teachers and administration at AFHS for their continuing support of our students as they work their way through this event, to our AF community and band alumni who have been there for us and shared in our pain and loss, the media, who have helped share the true story in a very positive manner about Heather and her life and act of heroism that night and lastly, to Heather’s family who have suffered the most, yet have been the most supportive of us. We share your pain but cannot imagine the loss you have suffered.

    We would also like to thank all those parents, individuals and companies who helped make it possible for our band to take the special message of our show last year about our Veteran heroes, that evolved to a higher level of meaning after the accident, to a national audience. We felt we were being drawn to make this happen as a way to thank those bands around the nations who had expressed such strong feelings towards us. Our sweet message was received as intended and we touched many hearts with our emotional performances.

    This accident will be with us throughout our lives but we feel it has turned into a positive force for good. We miss Heather with all our hearts and realize that although she taught us great lessons during her life perhaps her greatest lesson came as she gave her life to save the lives of our students. Although we can never fully express our appreciation for all that everyone has done for us, we are even more appreciative for the life Heather lived, and shared with us, as well as her last heroic act of service and selfless sacrifice to steer that bus through the narrow path of relative safety that resulted in no loss of life for our students. If the band has learned a lesson from this experience it is that we must all touch each other’s lives in positive and loving ways and that service to each other is what Heather would have us do. Heather, “because we knew you, our lives have been changed for good”!