Once again, the Oklahoma State University family is dealing with tragic loss, again as a result of a plane crash. Women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna died with a single-engine aircraft in which they were passengers crashed southwest of Little Rock.
The plane went down about 7:00pm Thursday evening, killing all four on board. The two other passengers in the craft were not connected to the university, but their identities have not been released.
Budke and Serna were on a recruiting trip in Arkansas when the crash occurred in the Winona Wildlife Management Area at Perryville, some 45 miles west of Little Rock.
It was just over ten years ago that OSU suffered a devastating tragedy in the crash of a plane in Colorado that killed ten men associated with the university’s basketball team.
Federal investigators are on their way to the crash site in Arkansas, but results of crash probes are usually nine months to a year in the making. According to FAA records, the plane was built in 1964 and registered to Olin Branstetter of Ponca City, Okla.
The OSU women’s basketball games for Saturday and Sunday in Stillwater have been canceled.
In a statement, OSU President Burns Hargis gave credit to Budke for raising the competitive level of the women’s basketball program in his seven years as head coach and called Serna a good example for players.
“Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of Kurt Budke, Miranda Serna and the other victims. Kurt was an exemplary leader and a man of character who had a profound impact on his student-athletes,” Hargis said. “Miranda was an up-and-coming coach and an outstanding role model for our young ladies.”
