Friends, family mourn loss of 17-year-old songwriter who was a 'bright light' to all

HEBER CITY — With a "voice like an angel," Sophie Rose Barton had already wowed her community, and friends said nothing could stop her from her dreams of being a singer.

Nothing except what shocked her Holladay community of friends and family when tragedy struck on Monday while she was away hiking with friends and her mother at a Mormon girls camp near Heber.

The 17-year-old girl, whom friends described as a "bright light who lit up the room the moment she entered," was hiking at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Heber Valley Camp when she felt dizzy and eventually collapsed, said Bishop Scott Wilmarth.

Emergency crews responded to the camp and took Barton by ambulance to Heber Valley Medical Center around 4 p.m., said Wasatch County Sheriff's Chief Deputy Jared Rigby. When she left the camp, Barton was conscious, but at the hospital she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead about 7 p.m.

While some at the scene initially suspected heat may have contributed to her death, a medical examiner has yet to determine a cause of death. Barton was hiking uphill on her way back to camp when she collapsed.

"She was the best friend to everyone," said friend and fellow ward member Emily Watts through bursts of tears. "She was always smiling and friendly. She was just a great person."

Friends and family filled every pew and extra chair at the Holladay South Stake center, 4917 Viewmont St., for a fireside service organized to remember her Tuesday evening.

A room full of heartbroken people remembered Barton, a girl who friends said could make a joke about almost everything and knew how to brighten a room with just a smile and a song. The young woman, who was a senior at Olympus High School, was already on the path to greatness with her sister, Tessa, as they toured around northern Utah and parts of Idaho performing original folk-rock music.

Friends described her as a gifted songwriter who could make up a song "about anything in her life and surroundings."

Once when she burnt the cookies she and some friends were baking for a girls' night, she started rapping a song about the smell and the destroyed treat, making her friends shake with laughter.

"She would talk in different British or Mexican accents, or take funny pictures on PhotoBooth and post them," said friend Jenny Jones. "She just didn't care what people thought. That's what I loved about her."