Unexpected company

Three strangers who literally dropped out of the air at one Donley County couple’s home recently ended up staying two days and becoming good friends.

Bill and Betty Ann Sansing had been to a funeral Sunday afternoon, January 9, when they returned to their ranch home north of Clarendon. As they drove up to the house, they came upon a site they never would have expected – a helicopter had landed by their barn.

“We didn’t know what to think,” Betty Ann Sansing recalled. “We just wondered, ‘Is this for real?’”

Just minutes earlier, Robert Myers, along with his father, Jack, and his son, Haden, had been flying in the four-seat Robertson R44 helicopter, going home to Skiatook, northwest of Tulsa, Okla., after visiting relatives in Clovis, New Mexico.

“We thought we could make it to Watonga (Okla.), but we ran into fog,” Robert said.
With no windshield wipers and facing freezing precipitation, Myers sat the copter down on what he would later find out was the southern part of the Sansings’ land.

“We just gathered hands and prayed for God to get us somewhere safe,” Robert said.

It was a prayer that was answered when they lifted off and flew just a little ways before they saw the Sansing’s barn. Robert landed again, and they noticed the ranch house several yards away. He went to the door, but no one was home. But within just a few minutes of his returning to the helicopter, the bewildered Sansings drove up.

“He came to the car and told us their situation,” Betty Ann said, “so we invited them inside so we could call the weather radar up on the computer.”
The flying conditions showed no signs of improving, so the Sansings allowed the Myers family to stow the helicopter in their barn and then put them up in a guest room with two king beds.

“We knew right away they were good folks,” Betty Ann said. “We didn’t have any hesitation to let them stay.”

“They took us in just like we were family,” Jack Myers said. “We helped [Bill] feed his cattle, and then helped him break ice the next day.”

Monday morning they checked the weather again. It was clear locally, but they would run into precipitation again before they could get home, so it was decided they would stay another night.

“Mondays are usually pretty quiet and boring around our house,” Betty Ann said. “But that day the time flew by.”

The families discovered they had a lot in common, and they spent the day visiting and learning more about each other. Robert had been in contact with friends back home, and at one point a deacon from his church sent him a text message: “There is a heavenly host watching over you.” Certainly, the Myers family thought their earthly hosts were heaven sent.

By the time the Myers men lifted off last Tuesday morning, it was apparent that the Sansings had adopted some new members into their family.

“We’re expecting a visit this spring,” said Betty Ann, and Robert agreed that was definitely going to happen.

“I’m going to come back and bring my whole family,” he said before his crew boarded their helicopter, took off to the south, banked back to the northeast, and flew over their new friends’ home on their way back to Oklahoma.