Twelve-year-old Cheyenne Denner bought matching butterfly necklaces for herself and her mother, Leia Denner. She was on a school trip to Great America on May 9, when her mother was killed in an airplane crash, the day before Mother's Day.
"The last thing my mother said to me was 'I love you baby,'" she said.
Cheyenne didn't learn of the crash until the next day.
"I never got a chance to give her the necklace," she said.
Pilot Gary Annas, 58, Denner, 40, her boyfriend, Brent Fahey, 30, Paul Dallas, 43, and Beau McGrath were killed in the May 9 crash of Annas' twin-engine Beachcraft.
Denner's mother, Carla Geurts, said she also heard from Denner on the morning of her death.
"On Thursday (May 7) I got a big bouquet of tulips from her, because I'm from the Netherlands," Geurts said. "I called her and thanked her and she said 'that's not all that's coming, mama.' When I got home from work on Friday, there there was a big box with six big strawberries dipped in Belgian chocolate. It was too late to call her. I called her early the next morning and could hear the cows in the background. When I thanked her the last thing she said was 'I love you Mama.' That was special."
Born April 1, 1969, in Hollywood, Calif., Denner showed an interest in horses early on.
"She was into that since she was a little girl," she said. "We have some videos of her, but I can't watch them yet. She won first place in her division, and had her own horses."
At a memorial barrel race held in California in Denner's honor, her mother said she was called a horse whisperer.
The family lived in Southern California until the mid 1980s when they moved to Arizona and then to Las Vegas. Geurts said they settled in Lemoore, Calif., where the family lived on a large property. Denner worked as a trainer with professional barrel horse trainer Lyndee Stairs, who hosted the May 31 memorial.
Denner, her children, Cheyenne and 17-year-old Garrett Coston, and Geurts all moved to Carson Valley in July 2007. Coston said his mother, who drove a school bus in Fresno, was concerned about the influence of drugs and gangs.
"This was a much nicer environment," said the Douglas High School drama student.
Geurts wasn't here long before she moved to Burbank, where she lives now and will be taking the children.
"She was a great daughter," she said of Denner, who stood 4-feet, 11 inches tall. "Big things come in small packages."
The family lived in the Gardnerville Ranchos home of Brian Fahey, Brent's father. Denner drove a school bus for the Douglas County School District.
A lifelong horsewoman, Denner would have been drawn to the May 9 branding party where she and her beau, Brent Fahey, saw pilot Gary Annas and the group decided to take an airplane ride.
Denner was interested in flying and would have been eager to fly with Annas.
"I would have gone," her mother said. "She was working to be a helicopter pilot. She was all set to go. She liked different work, like me."
Geurts said the town has been the family well after the tragedy.
"The town has been just wonderful," she said.
