Benny Westcott
A Sweet Home man died in the early morning hours of Sept. 19 when his motorcycle struck an elk near Scio.
On Tuesday at 12:15 a.m., Linn County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to a motor vehicle crash that occurred at 36600 Richardson Gap Rd., near Scio. Deputies arrived and learned that 22-year-old Stewart Curtis of Sweet Home was riding a black 2020 Yamaha motorcycle when he struck a cow elk in the roadway. Curtis sustained fatal injuries as a result of the crash, as did the elk. LCSO’s initial investigation showed that speed was a factor in the crash.
Curtis was born into a military family in Virginia. He moved from there with his family to North Carolina; then to Okinawa, Japan; then Michigan; Texas; and finally Sweet Home when he was a sophomore in high school. He went to Sweet Home High School for two years and then transferred to South Albany High School so he could play soccer with his travel soccer friends, according to his mom, Peggy West. Curtis graduated from South Albany and then spent some time at Southern Oregon University. From there he returned to Sweet Home during the COVID-19 pandemic and worked at Dutch Bros Coffee, at the Rio Theatre, and for a local builder. He was working at Dutch Bros at the time of his passing.
Curtis is survived by his mother, Peggy West; his father; James Curtis, and his grandmother, Marlyn Goodberry; and siblings, Marshall, 27, Laurel, 26, Soriah 24, Moira 21, Leif, 10, and Everleigh, 8.
According to his mother, Curtis loved soccer, riding his motorcycle, playing guitar and writing, as well as “just being with people.”
On Saturday afternoon, a procession was held in tribute to Curtis. Vehicles started across from Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Station 21, headed around Foster Lake, and ended at the Ames Creek Community Chapel.
Then on Saturday night under the lights at Husky Field, 25 friends and family of all ages played a soccer game in tribute to Curtis in the pouring rain. West said the game featured “a lot of slide tackling and a lot of laughing.”
In the wake of Curtis’s death, Sweet Home Dutch Bros was closed Tuesday, Sept. 19 through Sunday, Sept. 24 in order to give the tight-knit crew that work there time to heal.
The first couple of days after reopening, the Sweet Home Dutch Bros location was staffed by employees from the company’s Albany and Salem locations. One of those employees, Conrad Carter, says he expects some of the shop’s regular employees to start trickling back in at the end of this week.