Photo courtesy of KFSM-TV
The former owner of Papa John’s Pizza in Mountain Home was killed in a plane crash Friday evening in northwest Arkansas. According to a Facebook post from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, 43-year-old Lewis Brant Barnes of Tontitown was the lone occupant of a Beech M35 fixed-wing, single-engine aircraft when it crashed off North Smokey Bear Road southeast of Fayetteville.
The sheriff’s office received a report of the plane crash in rural Washington County just before 6. Officials told television station KFSM a nearby property owner called for help after discovering the crash hundreds of yards away. Deputies reportedly arrived on scene a few minutes later and located the crashed plane. County detectives are investigating, and the Federal Aviation Administration has been notified.
Brant Barnes is the son of former Mountain Home Shelter Insurance agent Lewis Barnes and the brother of Gregory Jewelers owner Lori Gregory. The Mountain Home stores is one of nearly 10 Papa John’s Pizza he has co-owned throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Mississippi. In 2018, he was featured in television advertisements as part of the chain’s national campaign to introduce a diverse group of individuals with different positions in the company around the world.
Brant Barnes was also a Shelter Insurance agent in Fayetteville. He, along with his father Lewis and Mountain Home Shelter Insurance agent Scott Tabor, provided 600 pizzas to front-line workers and those in need in Mountain Home during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. After Shelter Insurance decided to give agents $1,000 for their local communities, the elder Barnes and Tabor donated their funds to the Salvation Army in Mountain Home to feed those in need.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office was assisted on the scene by the Fayetteville and Round Mountain fire departments, Central EMS and the Washington County Coroner’s Office.
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