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Nearly four years have passed since nine coal miners died in the two implosions deep within the Crandall Canyon Mine, and potential legal action against the mine owner remains a distant possibility.

For the families of those who perished — six in the Aug. 6, 2007, implosion and three rescue workers who were killed 10 days later — it may be getting harder to cling to hope for a full accounting.

A state commission convened just after the disaster no longer exists, and the Utah Office of Coal Mine Safety it helped create is run by a single person who works part time. Meantime, a federal criminal investigation is moving slowly and carefully, and no one can say when it might conclude.

That's why those of us on the outside, whose connection to a coal mine is little more than a light switch, must never forget the men and women who work all hours in the dark interiors of mines that operate under the weight of mountaintops.

So it seems appropriate to call out their names and conjure their faces, even if most of us have seen them only in bas-relief on a monument at the Huntington cemetery.

The crew that night at Crandall Canyon included Manny Sanchez, a 25-year veteran of coal mines in Colorado, Wyoming and, for two decades, in Utah. He, everyone knew, was a "good man."

Carlos Payán, who grew up in Sinaloa, Mexico, was shy and generous — his mother said he sent too much of his pay home to her. At 22, he'd been working underground for three years.

Then there was "Flash," also known as Kerry Allred, who loved his wife, three kids and three grandkids and playing his guitar by the campfire.

Luis Hernández, a recent immigrant from Mexico, was 23 and had just a few months of mining under his belt. Same with Brandon Phillips, 24, who'd been a miner for 11 days and left behind a 5-year-old son.

People said Don Erickson was always laughing — beside his race car, astride his motorcycle, reading the newspaper with a grandchild in his arms. An on-and-off miner for two decades, he died at 50.

Dale Black, the man everyone called "Bird," had curly hair and a goatee. Black, a miner for 25 years, was born and raised in Emery County and lived life large until he perished in the rescue effort.

Brandon Kimber left behind three young kids when, as crew chief of the rescue team, he threw himself across an injured man; both were buried under 5 feet of coal. The man he protected survived.

The jokester, Gary Jensen, had mined for 30 years and been a federal mine inspector for six years. He'd recently celebrated his son's return from a National Guard tour in Iraq.

While it may seem the rest of the world has let the disaster slip into the distant past, it's the widows and children, the extended families, who will never forget, says Huntington Mayor Hilary Gordon.

The immediate families "may have received some money and insurance. Money is great, but it doesn't bring back those arms to put around you, or that friend or son," she says. "No amount of money can bring them back."

But we can gaze at the memorial in Huntington, and another near the mine's portal, and think of those good men whose deaths have yet to be fully explained or accounted for.

Peg McEntee is a news columnist. Reach her at pegmcentee@sltrib.com.

or www.faceboook/pegmcentee.