AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFFFriday, February 18, 2005Engineer Mark Humphries loved the Afghan people and was proud to help them build a highway linking the country's three major cities.He died Feb. 3 when the Kam Air 737 jetliner he had taken to a business meeting in the capital city of Kabul crashed into a mountainside in a blizzard. He was 52.Family and friends will hold a memorial service for the 1974 Texas A&M University graduate at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at First Baptist Church, 200 S. Texas Ave., in Bryan."It's every construction guy's dream to be on the ultimate highway project, and that's kind of what this was," said his brother, Sam Humphries of College Station. "He also loved the idea that he was doing something for the good of the country."Mark Humphries was one of 104 passengers and crew members lost. The remains have not been recovered because of harsh weather conditions at the crash site.News photographs show it as a plateau covered in deep snow on an 11,000-foot mountain, about 20 miles southeast of Kabul. Afghan authorities said the plane, part of Afghanistan's first post-Taliban private airline, vanished from radar while approaching Kabul's airport.Mark Humphries' younger brother, Chris, who still is working on the highway project run by a New Jersey company and financed by American aid money, said it was the harshest winter the country had seen in many years, with temperatures well below zero at night.Mark Humphries was born April 19, 1952, in Dublin, a small town between Fort Worth and Abilene. He was the second of four children born to J.C. Humphries, a construction company owner, and his wife, Pat, a homemaker.Mark Humphries earned a degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M, where he met his wife, Jamie Banner of Llano.For almost 30 years, they traveled the United States, mainly in Virginia and Texas, while he worked on large highway construction projects. They eventually settled, with their three children, in Houston."He worked with private companies contracting with the state or the feds," Sam Humphries said. "He was in charge of some pretty significant highway projects across the South and on the East Coast."A friend called him in the summer of 2003 and offered the Afghanistan job. He left in July, living in roadside camps that moved as the project crept along on its mountainous route, connecting Kabul, Herat and Kandahar. He had returned to Texas several times for family gatherings.He is survived by his parents; a sister and two brothers; his wife, their daughter and two sons; and two nieces and two nephews. The family is setting up a trust fund for his youngest son, age 9, but details have not been worked out."The people who know him well know how he was," Sam Humphries said. "Just a helluva good guy."