NEAH BAY — The memories of three tragic deaths were blanketed by gray skies as hundreds of people gathered in a gymnasium Friday to remember Dawn Marie “Dibbles” Mendez, Sharon Rose Charles and Asheli Dawn Villicana.
Friends and family members recounted tales of the two women and one young girl killed Oct. 21 in a head-on collision with an RV on U.S. Highway 101.
“We have had 19 deaths in our community since February, and none of them have gotten any easier,” said Pastor Andrew Winck of Living Waters Church in Neah Bay.
Some of the nearly 800 people who attended the service stood at the rear of the packed gymnasium.
Pictures of Mendez’s and Charles’s grandchildren flanked one wall. On another wall hung a banner with handprints and well-wishes from Neah Bay Elementary School students.
Flowers covered the caskets of Mendez, 59, her sister, Charles, 61, and Mendez’s great-granddaughter, Villicana, 11, beneath flags of the United States, state of Washington and the Makah Nation hanging from the gym rafters.
This full report appears in today’s Clallam County edition of the Sunday Peninsula Daily News. Click on “Subscribe” to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.
