The list of names on the memorial for the Oct. 2, 1970 plane crash mean more to Carmen Hytche now than they did 13 years ago when she began working at Wichita State.

“When I first started, it was a list of names,” Hytche said. “But I’m at that point now where it’s more than just names. And that one event, that one occurrence — it was kind of like a spider web, and it just spread out. And there are a bunch of stories and things connected.”

Survivors, family members and young Shockers gathered together Wednesday for the 43rd time to honor the 31 lives lost in the Oct. 2, 1970, plane crash.

The plane was carrying some of the WSU football team, coachers, administrators and supporters to a game against Utah State University when it crashed on a mountain near Silver Plume, Colo. The rest of the team and staff members were on another plane.

The crash is often referred to as one of the worst tragedies in the history of college sports, but the story doesn’t end there. In fact, for Hytche, director of special events with University Relations, new stories continue to reveal themselves every year.

Hytche has met and befriended family members related to crash victims and survivors in her role as coordinator. Each year she discovers a new aspect of the story, a reminder of how so many people from different walks of life are forever intertwined.

“It’s the connections,” she said. “These people have this unique connection that they don’t share with anybody else.”

But even though they all share the same connection, each person’s story varies.

In 2010, Randy J. Jackson was the first survivor to pass away after his battle with pancreatic cancer.

“Until he passed away, he never missed one. Never,” his wife, Gayle Jackson, said about the memorial ceremony. “He’d take off work. He always had it understood at Robinson that he needed that day off.”

Because the memorial ceremony was so important to Randy, the family made a point to carry on the tradition in his absence.

“After he passed away, we made sure that one of the family members was here to represent him,” Gayle said.

Gayle and Randy met in a class in January of 1971, just three months after the crash. They dated for six years before tying the knot on a marriage that would last 34 years and produce two daughters, Amanda, 32, and Sesily, 22.

“He only talked [about the crash] if he was asked,” Gayle said. “I met him right after the plane crash, and I never asked. It’s not something he really dwelled on. But after we were married for a number of years, then he would occasionally just interject things to me about it.”

In spite of the crash, Randy completed his time at WSU, becoming the first in his family to attend college and graduate.

“Of the survivors, he was the only one who returned to play the last year,” Gayle said. “I asked him why. He said, ‘Well, first of all, I love the game, I love the school.’ But he said, ‘They needed a leader, and I provided that leadership.’”

Randy continued his leadership role as a father and 31 years as a basketball and track coach at Robinson Middle School.

“He was very funny,” daughter Sesily Jackson said. “He told very funny things that were hilarious, but he was very black and white — you knew that he was either this way or that way. There were pretty much no in-betweens.”

But life wasn’t just laughs for Randy and his family. There was a tremendous amount of love and respect among them.

“He was very much a person who didn’t show affection like that,” Sesily said. “But you just knew by his actions and how he treated you that he really did love you.”

His students only ever called him “Coach.” The students and coaches left impacts on each other.

“When we found out the extent of his cancer, and it was to the point where we knew, and the doctors had pretty much told us that there wasn’t anything more they could do, he said, ‘I want to see my kids.’ Well, I knew what that meant,” Gayle said.

Three students asked permission to notify the other former students, and Gayle gave them the go-ahead.

“At 2:00 that afternoon, they starting coming,” she said.

Students came from all over to pay their respects and say their goodbyes before Randy died in July 2010.

The summer before his death, Randy returned to the site of the crash for the first time. In an August 2009 trip to film interviews for the PBS documentary “Black and Gold,” Randy climbed the mountain to the spot where he lost so many friends 39 years earlier, bringing his experience full-circle.

“He’s still very much, in spirit, alive and well,” Gayle said. “There’s no end to Randy Jackson, there’s just no end.”

It is stories like this that bring people back to the memorial ceremony on Oct. 2 every year. The memorial is more than just names on a wall; the story of the crash continues with each passing year.

“It’s a tapestry,” Hytche said. “So why is it important? That tapestry. I think it’s still being woven in many respects.”