The search ended shortly before midnight. After a day and a half of searching, Rob Reed's body was found 500 yards from where his plane had crashed, less than a mile east of Interstate 5 near Kelso.
His family and friends had placed their lingering hopes on finding him alive after footprints were found leading from the crash.
KCTS-TV producers Lena Sharpe, 29, and Reed, 38, were killed when their airplane went down early Thursday in dense woods five miles northeast of Kelso. The plane, piloted by Reed, disappeared while making a second attempt at landing in fog. The two were heading to Kelso to work on a documentary on old-growth forests.
Cause of the crash is under investigation.
Searchers found Sharpe's body Friday night in the wreckage of the Cessna 172. They followed Reed's footprints and found his body west of the plane. He had survived the crash and was heading toward the freeway when he died from his injuries.
"They were the two most positive people in the world," said Gary Gibson, KCTS executive director in charge of local production. "That's why this makes all the less sense."
They had an eye for the obscure and the extraordinary. If there were two paths to a story, they chose the off-beaten track.
Reed had been with KCTS for about five years and had won several awards, including a national Emmy for "Vanishing Dawn Chorus," a documentary produced with Gordon Hempton, a sound tracker, in 1990. The pair had crisscrossed the globe recording the sounds of birds greeting the morning.
Nothing fazed Reed during the demanding trip, Hempton recalled - not gunshots in Sri Lanka, poisonous scorpions crawling over his sandal-clad feet or the crocodiles by the water's edge in Australia.
"That was where the best shots were, the best sounds were," said Hempton.
Sharpe was beginning a promising career, said Walter Parsons, KCTS senior vice president. She was hired three years ago after an internship for the station.
She had a penchant for offbeat films, not the kind Hollywood would ever produce, said Judy Koven, who worked with Sharpe for Seattle's International Festival of Films by Women Directors.
Sharpe was working on "Rings," a documentary about forest management, when the plane went down. She had received a $7,000 state grant to produce it, her first full documentary.
The youngest of nine children, Sharpe had a passion for the state's forests, said Heather Mitchell, who attended Nathan Hale High School with her. Sharpe's father, Grant Sharpe, was a forestry professor at the University of Washington.
Reed is survived by his wife, Bobbie Baker, two daughters, Emilie and Anna; parents Elmo and June Reed of Green Bay, Wis.; and two sisters, Dianne Francis of Indianapolis, and Renee Kreusel of Wassau, Wis.
A memorial service for Reed will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow in Volunteer Park. Donations may be made to the Children's Hospital Foundation of Seattle, the Civil Air Patrol or the Cowlitz County Search and Rescue Team at P.O. Box 390, Kelso, WA 98626.
Sharpe is survived by her eight siblings and her parents, Grant and Winona. A memorial service has not yet been scheduled.
Rob was my brother-in-law, my sister's husband. I never had the chance to meet Lena. I am thinking of them both today, just as I am thinking of their friends and other family members who still continue to mourn the loss of these two kind, talented, adventurous, well-loved souls.
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