Dara Watson

February 22, 2012

DARA WATSON



She was a woman who rode elephants and hiked on Mount Everest, friends said, in remembering Dara Watson as an adventurous spirit who loved life.

Her funeral Wednesday in Boone drew people from here and the Charleston, S.C., suburb of Mount Pleasant, where the Boone native lived and was murdered.

Both communities had been gripped by a two-week search for the missing Watson before her body was found Friday. An evening candlelight vigil had already been planned in both communities that day for the missing woman and went ahead even as authorities were working to identify the body found with a gunshot wound to the head and buried 60 yards from her burned-out SUV in Francis Marion National Forest.

The vigil in Boone was held outside Watsonatta Western World, the West King Street store owned by her parents, Darrel and Ellen Watson. Cowboy hats, clothes and horse tack has been sold at the store since 1969.

The Rev. Reggie Hunt said during the funeral that Watson's family wanted to thank the community for its support.
"The town of Boone, the community we live in, is such a great community to come together in times of tragedy," Hunt said. "Darrel (Watson) has said how overwhelmed he was with the support of all the people, the people in Charleston and up here."

Watson was a graduate of Appalachian State University. She had worked in finance at Tweetsie Railroad before moving to South Carolina, where she worked as a controller at Verge Solutions.

Watson's friend Mandy Southern talked about how she'd spoken to Watson about her travels, and they'd talked about fighting seasickness by keeping their eyes on the horizon.

I'm so thankful to have had Dara as a friend, and she had such a full life," Southern said. "She had the chance to experience things most of us never would. She got to climb part of Mount Everest, and she got to see kangaroos in Australia and see the mountains of Peru. I'm going to really miss laughing with her, and hearing her stories, her laughter and joy, the peace she had in herself."

Photos on her Facebook page show Watson at Mount Everest base camp and crossing a river on the back of a baby elephant. The elephant is spraying water with his trunk, and Watson is smiling with her eyes squeezed shut.

Watson's body lay in a wooden casket in front of the pulpit where Southern was speaking Wednesday.

"Dara, you've been a great friend to me," Southern said. "I'll always miss your laughter and your stories. I'll think of you when I take my kids to Tweetsie. …Thank you for sharing your friendship. I feel so blessed."

Hunt said that a tragedy makes people ask if they can trust God.
"God is not the one who has taken Dara from us," he said. "God is the one who has received Dara for us. … Jesus keeps his promises that those who hope in him, you will see again."

After the funeral, her family followed Watson's casket in a 25-mile procession to the Watson family cemetery in Banner Elk.


 http://www.journalnow.com/news/local/article_3daddbfc-4cd5-5290-b9ca-a562027e7203.html