More than 100 people gathered Monday on the grass next to the Hales Center for the Performing Arts at Southwestern Oregon Community College. They stood under the afternoon sun and listened to comments at a memorial ceremony for local artist and student Nancy Douglas, who died April 27, after a fire at the school.

A gathering Monday in honor of the late Nancy Douglas brought a couple hundred people to the Southwestern Oregon Community College campus in Coos Bay. The 68-year-old Coos Bay artist was working on an independent art project on the campus last Wednesday morning when her clothing somehow caught fire. She died early the next day in a Portland hospital. She is very well known in the community, and on the campus and she was fondly remembered by staff and students of the school. Art instructor James Fritz said, “She was pure of spirit and joyous about every aspect of her life, especially her art.” Her art consisted of welded steel sculptures, paintings and other mixed media. A Japanese maple tree will be planted on campus in Douglas' honor.