Getting away.

• Position: Up Front - Laura and Ray Gosser die in plane crash - Obituary

They loved that airplane. You could say they loved it to death.

Laura liked her job, but she lived to travel. After she and Ray bought and fixed up the Cessna 210, it became their magic carpet. The Gossers could leave Charlotte after work and be on a Hilton Head bike path before rush hour cleared. Niagara Falls and Florida's gulf coast were weekend jaunts they'd embark upon after waking up Saturday morning to the right weather.

Sunday morning, Dec. 9, they were flying back from Laura's grandmother's funeral in Terrell, Texas, outside Dallas. About 60 miles southwest of Little Rock, Ark., the plane developed engine trouble. Ray tried to set it down on a highway. It hit a piece of road equipment and exploded, killing Laura, 40, who had joined BNC's staff in 1994 as accountant and worked her way up to general manager. Ray, a Bank of America senior vice president, died in a Little Rock hospital five days later.

I wrote this, which was read as the eulogy at Laura's funeral.

The crash that shattered that airplane broke my company's heart; for Laura was its heart and soul. She didn't write or edit stories, nor did she sell advertising or subscriptions...