Heather Christensen: Worth every honor

AMERICAN FORK — When she was 5 years old, Heather Christensen scrawled in pencil on a torn piece of notebook paper: "Sin all youv given to me I give you all I have."

She taped her only nickel to the paper and presented it to her parents, who have kept it for the past 28 years.

Today, Christensen will be honored for giving all she had throughout her life during funeral services at 11 a.m. in the Alpine Tabernacle, 100 E. Main. Later this afternoon, her body will be interred at the Delta City Cemetery.

On the evening of Oct. 10, Christensen lost her life trying to save a busload of high school band members returning from a competition they had won at Idaho State University in Pocatello. Students who were on the bus said they saw Christensen, 33, reach for the wheel after the bus driver blacked out, but the bus veered off I-15 about 50 miles north of the Idaho-Utah border, near McCammon, Idaho, and tipped over. Several students and the bus driver suffered minor injuries; Christensen was the only fatality.

Today the student musicians who were on that bus will join the rest of the American Fork High School Marching Band in performing at the funeral and grave-side services. The event will cap a week filled with sorrow and surprise at the outpouring of support for members of Heather's family.

"It's incredible — I am shocked every time I get another phone call, every honor they are doing for her," Annette Tippetts, Christensen's mother, told the Deseret News about the flood of e-mails and condolences that have followed her daughter'sdeath.

"I think the tears being shed now are just tears of joy for her life," said her sister, Jana Hogenson. "It's made all the difference in getting through this."

"We knew she was great. We just didn't know how great," added her stepfather, Paul Tippetts.

Family members remember Christensen as a tomboy who embraced music in junior high school and never looked back. At first they thought she'd be a singer. The fourth of six children, Heather Christensen followed her sister, Kara, into the clarinet section of the school band.

For a while she juggled sports and music, playing on the basketball team at American Fork Junior High and as a sophomore at American Fork High School. After that, it was music full time.