naments by plane; when Steve went off to play club baseball at Virginia Tech, his father saluted the team before each game by circling the diamond low overhead. Youngquist’s twin-engine plane was


beige with a white underbelly. He had taken it on countless family vacations and business trips, and he had shuttled Democrat Tim Kaine around Virgin- ia during Kaine’s 2005 gubernatorial campaign. As an umpire, he used the plane to travel to diamonds all over the mid-Atlantic. Never mind that he might spend $700 in fuel to get to a game for which he was paid only $125. “I never saw him happier than when


he was flying his airplane,” said his wife of seven years, Kathryn Youngquist. On March 4, Youngquist stopped


for fuel at a little airport in Louisa, Va., en route to work a college game in Danville. As his plane left the runway, something went wrong. Less than a mile from the airport,


Youngquist’s plane slammed nose-first into a house. The house exploded in flame. Its


only occupant, busy in the basement at the time of the crash, was safe. But Jay Youngquist, who had logged more than 2,000 hours as a pilot without mishap, was killed. He was 62. “I’m sure it was engine failure of


some sort,” Steve Youngquist said. The National Transportation Safety Board has not released its final investigation into the crash, but its preliminary re- port quoted witnesses who said the plane had sounded as if it was running rough in the moments after takeoff. For the rest of the baseball season,


Youngquist was remembered across the region with a moment of silence before high school and college games. It was unlike him to draw so much


notice. And that’s what made him great, said his friend and fellow baseball offi- cial, Fred Chandler. “We do our best job when nobody re-


members the umpires, and that’s how Jay was,” Chandler said. “He loved base- ball, and he let them play the game.”


Emma Brown is a staff writer for The Washington Post. She can be reached at browne@washpost.com.


     





             


       


     


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156