(The following article by Michael Marizco and Thomas Stauffer was posted on the Arizona Daily Star website on October 30. Randy Howard is a member of BLE Division 28 in Tucson.)
PUERTO PEÑASCO, Sonora — The families and friends of the five men aboard the ship say the men have many things in common:
They are level-headed, strong-minded and resourceful. The pilot of the ship, Carl Hopper, is a professional boatman who fished the Gulf of California for many years.
The five were part of a large group of Jehovah’s Witnesses who come to Puerto Peñasco twice a year when the weather is the warmest, in April and October.
Here is a glimpse of who they are:
Carl Hopper, 42
Curt Miller has been a friend of Hopper’s for 25 years. He was supposed to go out on the boat with the five men to catch tuna Saturday but backed out because they were going to be gone for so long.
“He loved fishing,” he said of Hopper, who owned a painting business. “He painted my houses and there was times he didn’t show up at my job because he was fishing,” he said, laughing. “A good guy, though – they all are.”
Mark Brinke, 47
Brinke, also a contractor, loves fishing and the outdoors, said his wife, Jane Brinke.
“If they find Mark, he’ll be ticked off he didn’t get to fish longer,” said her sister, Sandy Bright.
Jane remembered camping with Mark in Patagonia years ago. He lost his hat driving and when he reached for it, crashed the car off a 5-foot gully. Thirty stitches later, he insisted on finishing the trip, she said.
Daryl Holland, 42
Holland is “a guy you would like instantly,” said Loren Mayhew, who worked with Holland at Environmental Systems Products, 2002 N. Forbes Blvd.
“He was just that kind of guy, friendly, there to be helpful,” said Mayhew, who met Holland in 1997. “He is just this calm, great guy. I don’t think I ever saw him in a fit of anger about anything.”
Holland develops software for the auto emissions testing industry, he said.
An avid fisherman and bicyclist, Holland was “single, but never alone,” Mayhew said.
“He wasn’t married, but he always had a lot of people who wanted to be around him,” he said. “He had family here and in Tennessee, and I know he had a favorite niece he talks about a lot.”
Randy Howard, 47
Joshua Howard, 21
Randy Howard, who works in the railroad business, is one of the kindest people he has ever met, Jerry Espinoza said.
“Everybody that knows him realizes that he was a very generous person,” said Espinoza, a family friend for five years. “Every time I’ve ever seen him, when you talk to him, he’s always interested in what’s going on with you, and always had a smile on his face.” Howard is an avid hunter and fisherman, family members said.
Howard’s son Joshua, an engineering student at the University of Arizona, is a “ball of energy,” Espinoza said.
“You hear so many negative things about young people, whether it’s drugs or other things, but Josh is just a nice young man, a very responsible person who respected people” he said. “He was just a nice person to be around who had this energy where he was constantly doing things.”
Michael Howard, 19, is Randy’s son and Joshua’s brother. He was in Puerto Peñasco awaiting word on the missing family members.
Joshua Howard’s girlfriend, Sarah Cox, 18, described Joshua as an exaggerator who loves to joke and smile.
“He’s with his dad,” she said. “That’s definitely a reassurance to us that he’s with his dad.”