Sculptor James “Bud” Bottoms remembered during 19th anniversary of Alaska Airlines crash
Santa Barbara sculptor and environmental activist James “Bud” Bottoms was remembered at the nineteenth anniversary of the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 crash.
Buttoms, who died in September at the age of 90, created the memorial sundial sculpture by the pier in Port Hueneme.
On Thursday, Jan. 31, relatives of the 88 people who died in the Seattle-bound plane crash off Anacapa Island reminisced about Bottoms.
Bottoms flew up to Seattle to meet with families of the victims when he learned they were looking for an artist.
Paige Stockley, who lost her father, Seattle wine critic Tom Stockley, and her mother Peggy in the crash said, “He met the families and told us about the Chumash Indians rainbow bridge story.”
He is famous for a sculptor about it.
“We saw pictures of his monument in Santa Barbara and in Puerto Vallarta where the flight originated.”
She believes many of passengers would have seen his dolphin statue in Puerto Vallarta.
“To have him do the sundial monument with the dolphins here. at the crash monument, it was meant to be.”
Bottom’s design won a competition against 48 other artists. It was an almost unanimous decision by the families. His other design of two dolphins intertwined in a figure eight came in second.
The sundial includes three dolphins representing the remains of the three people never found.
“We also were good friends with Bud, we loved him, and he was fun, and he would come here often to these ceremonies and he had twinkly blue eyes and big laugh and we really miss him,” said Stockley, who spoke about Bottoms during a tribute at the ceremony.
The Hueneme High School choir sang songs and a Sheriff’s helicopter flew over the ceremony at 4:22 p.m., the exact time of the crash.
The crash was blamed on insufficient lubrication of a jackscrew in the horizontal stabilizer system.
On the twentieth anniversary next January, family members said they expect Alaska Airlines to fly them to Port Hueneme for a boat ride to the Island.
