All are welcome to a memorial mass for Michael Nash at St. Francis Catholic Church at noon on Aug. 10. A potluck reception will follow at the Nash-Strasser residence, 1176 Lampard Rd., Friday Harbor.

Michael Patrick Nash was born in Friday Harbor in 1950. On July 11 he died just south of Ketchikan flying solo from his Friday Harbor home to his southeast Alaska home in his Piper Comanche. He was an accomplished pilot, priest, and lawyer, and a loving husband and the beloved, eldest brother of seven. He earned his pilot’s license at 16 years old and flew for Island Sky Ferries throughout the San Juan Islands. Ordained in the Catholic Church, he served the Juneau Diocese in southeast Alaska for 30 years as the flying priest. In 2006 he graduated from Creighton Law School and started a new career as an attorney. He was generous, kind and as holy a man as any that ever lived. He will be sorely missed.

“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return,” Leonardo da Vinci