Profiles of the missing
Following are profiles of the four people who were on board a small plane that has been missing since Sunday in Northwest Montana.
Erika Hoefer and Melissa Weaver
Daily Inter Lake staff writers and friends Erika Hoefer and Melissa Weaver, who are among the four people whose light plane has been missing since Sunday afternoon, are among the newest hires in the Inter Lake newsroom.
Both reporters joined the staff in December 2009.
Hoefer covers the business beat for the Inter Lake and also is a weekend wire editor and page designer. She is the lead writer for the Flathead Business Journal.
Hoefer, 27, has a degree in journalism and mass communication from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
A Beloit, Wis., native, she began her journalism career in magazine writing and design, serving as an editorial intern for American Girl magazine and later as creative director for Launch magazine in Des Moines.
She was a reporter, page designer and features assistant in 2005-06 for the Beloit Daily News, then moved to the Chicago area where she was layout editor for the Pioneer Press in Glenview, Ill, for a year.
Before moving to Kalispell, she was a senior designer and style editor for two years for North Shore Magazine, also in Glenview, where she designed pages, features and advertisements for the luxury suburban regional magazine.
Weaver, 23, covers courts and law-enforcement beats for the Inter Lake.
She is a native of Billings who graduated in May 2009 with a degree in print journalism from the University of Montana School of Journalism, and a degree in psychology.
Weaver worked as a reporter and editor for the UM newspaper, the Montana Kaimin, while attending the university.
She was an intern in 2008 for the Santa Cruz Sentinel in Santa Cruz, Calif., where she wrote stories and shot video of breaking news events for the Sentinel’s website.
Weaver was an associate editor for the Montana Journalism Review last year, assigning and editing stories and overseeing the production of the UM student-produced journalism review magazine.
Sonny Kless and Brian Williams
Sonny Kless of Missoula just graduated from the University of Montana and had obtained his pilot’s license about a year ago, according to his mother, Janelle Gentry of Kalispell.
Kless, who at one time attended Bigfork High School, was piloting the light plane that has been missing since Sunday.
Gentry said Kless, 25, has flown the Glacier National Park/Flathead Lake/Flathead River loop several times before and is a good pilot.
She said Kless and Brian Williams, a passenger on the plane, are both avid outdoorsmen.
“If anyone can survive out there, it would be Sonny,” Gentry said.
“We have many family members and the community praying, and we remain hopeful.”
FAA’s civil aviation registry shows Kless has a private pilot’s license about a year old. Kless is listed by the Montana Department of Justice as a violent offender for a Wyoming robbery in 2003.
Kless confessed to robbing a gas station in Elk Mountain, armed with a shotgun and wearing a ski mask. He was sentenced to three to five years in prison in December 2003 and released on probation seven months later, Montana Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Anez said.
Gentry said the robbery was a stupid mistake Kless made as a teenager going through a rough patch in his life. She said he was an adventurer who was planning a post-graduation trip to Europe before heading to Taiwan to teach English.
Kless received a degree this spring in environmental studies and communications.
Vicki Watson, one of Kless’ environmental studies professors at the University of Montana, described him to the Inter Lake as “very dedicated to building a more sustainable and equitable world. He worked very hard on sustainable agriculture, waste reduction, just all the things that we associate with green living.”
Williams will be a second-year law student in the fall; he is expected to graduate in May 2012.
His parents are Gary and Donna Williams of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
He was born and raised in Coeur d’Alene and was a friend of both Melissa Weaver and Kless and had flown with Kless before.
“He is a unique and magnificent person. He’s a philosopher, athlete, mountaineer, musician, plays guitar, sings and writes songs,” his father said.
“He’s an amazing, amazing person.”
According to Joe Roberts, one of his best friends, “There was nobody that wasn’t just blown away by him. He’s about justice in the highest sense.”
Williams has an undergraduate degree in environmental studies and is a staunch environmentalist.
His parents are taking care of Brian’s dog, Charlie, a chocolate Lab. They may take Charlie with them today if they go searching for the missing plane.