PAYSON — Clayton Barnes loved helicopters. A Utah National Guard pilot, he enjoyed swooping over his home in an Apache helicopter to entertain his wife and children. He bought his two sons more than 100 model helicopters and taught his youngest, a 2-year-old, the names of all the massive machine's parts.
It was a sentimental moment then, when two Apache helicopters roared over Barnes' grave site Saturday as family and friends gathered to say their final farewells. Barnes, 30, died Monday after the AH-64 Apache helicopter he was flying crashed east of Fairfield. He was on a training mission for the Utah National Guard.
More than 1,000 people attended a funeral service for the pilot at the Payson LDS Stake Center.
"Clayton saw life as an adventure, and everyone was invited," said David Clark, Barnes' brother-in-law.
Clark described Barnes as a daredevil who enjoyed dirt biking, snowboarding and spending time with family. He had dreamed of becoming a helicopter pilot like his father, a Vietnam veteran, since he was a small boy.
Ambitious and goal-oriented, he started basic training while still in high school, Clark said. During flight school, he never earned lower than 98 percent on a test. Barnes served a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Philippines and spent a year with the Utah National Guard in Afghanistan.
"Barnes described his deployment with the military as a vacation but without his family," Clark said. "When people approached him to thank him for his service to his country, he said, 'It was my pleasure."'
A slide show of photos projected onto the wall of the church where friends and family gathered to remember Barnes was a tender glimpse into the life of a man who friends described as loving and selfless.
Barnes was pictured laughing with his children in front of an Apache helicopter. Hands stained with dye, he proudly presents a still-dripping Easter egg to his laughing daughter. In another photo, robed in graduation gear and beaming in undisguised glee, he catches his wife in a bear hug on the Brigham Young University campus after earning a bachelor's degree in biology.
While friends describe the soldier as a "manly man," Rodney Mayo, the bishop of Barnes' LDS ward, said Barnes was first and foremost a family man.
"It was a very proud moment when he got a minivan," he said. "Some think it is embarrassing to drive that kind of car but not Clayton. He loved being a dad."
Clark said Barnes' talents best served him as a husband and father. He was known to "embarrass" his wife by smothering her with affection during church meetings and telling all he knew "no one had a wife like he had."
Barnes and his wife, Melinda, had three children, ages 2, 4 and 6, with another due in November. He loved to laugh and "share silliness" with his children, Clark said.
"He made sure to give his daughter a flower to tuck behind her ear whenever he brought his wife flowers," he said. "When his son had to wear a brace on his feet, he flew him around the room like he was a snowboarder."
Barnes was synonymous with happiness, said his mother, Susan Covington — he could not be ruffled. She tearfully shared a letter she wrote to Barnes after she received news of his death.
"You made things so easy," she said. "The only thing that was difficult was birth, after that you seemed to take over."
Dedicated, playful, patriotic and self-motivated, Covington said her son was "the kind of person we could only hope to be."
Jason Hathaway, a fellow pilot who served with Barnes in Afghanistan, echoed those sentiments.
"He could have been best friends with a bum on the street or the president of the United States — it was all the same to him," he said. "There wasn't a judging bone in his body."
E-mail: estuart@desnews.com