Student Deaths 2009

FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL BE WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO. Mo. He would alternate between the crystal waters and the thick forests, loyal and loving to both sides of his immediate family.

In the thicket of Fulton, it was a slice of heaven. The A-Frame that served as a reunion hall for the family overlooked the original homestead: 600 acres of forest, plants and rocks, all waiting for Bryan to explore and pull out snakes or other critters.

“Bryan had a love for the outdoors and had an appreciation for God’s nature,” Anne said. “He was not one to be inside; he had to be out, just living life to the fullest. He was a real down-to-earth kid.” *** Bryan’s skating friends held a candlelight vigil at the bedside. He was surrounded by the small votives on that night, but the next day Bryan’s body would travel into the recovery room for surgery to donate his organs, and then later settle at Johnson County Memorial Gardens on the following Wednesday.

The next weekend, his friends and other skateboarders organized a barbeque and skating competition. The family donated all profits to Bryan’s memorial scholarship fund, which the family planned to grant to a graduating student in Bryan’s grade who they felt best embodied Bryan’s qualities.

A week before the crash, Bryan came home with a grin from ear to ear and a DVD in his hand. He had earned a sponsorship from Ride Forever, the skate shop he had loved to work at for the past six months.

The sponsorship gave him access to free gear, a new board every month and a few minutes in The Ride Forever Studio highlight video of their best skaters.

Those five minutes would have sealed a future Vans sponsorship, Bryan’s next major goal, just before an A in fourth quarter physics.

But that sponsorship had been his goal for the past school year, and it almost always came before homework or parties. He was determined. Cracks, pops and ollies sounded from the driveway on Linden Drive, regardless of how many times he fell.

“In jewelry class, I’d be like ‘what’s this new scrape from?’” Ballard said. “‘Oh, I just went down this 14-foot stair,’ [Bryan would say]. He was crazy.”

His first hospitalization was on his thirteenth birthday. It was raining, and he wanted to go with Erik to the skate park. His mom wanted to go out for ice cream. The ICU held him for two days after he smacked his head on the slippery concrete, but he left with only a few stitches and a minor concussion. “In the ambulance on the way to Children’s Mercy, I thought to myself ‘I hope I never have to go through this again,” Anne said. “I worried about him all the time when he was out skateboarding, or doing anything.”

Even when he wasn’t on his board, he was a natural athlete and played soccer for East during his three-year high school career. His cleats moved like a

dancer’s feet; it was like he was choreographed. A lucky fan would be able to glimpse his mouth, biting down on his tongue in determination, just like he’d done since preschool. Next season would be dedicated to Bryan and his legacy of fancy footwork on the grass.

“He had this smile,” head soccer coach Jaime Kelly said. “And whenever you saw this smile….it always kind of made you laugh and bring a smile to your face.” *** Before Bryan’s gurney moved down the hall, his family and friends held hands around the white, suddenly warm room. Severson led the prayer, hoping for a miracle that Bryan’s organs could be donated despite his condition and the doctor’s forebodings.

His Morfar sang “Tryggare Re Kan Ingen Vara,” the Swedish hymn “Children of the Heavenly Father,” as his last parting “Do do da da do do do.” The rest took turns saying their last good-byes, Bryan’s dad, Bruce, leaning in closely to tell him which friend was coming next.

“I just walked in, and you gotta take deep breaths before you walk into that room, because you can’t control tears from coming out of your eyes when you walk in there and see your best friend lying on the bed, completely, just gone,” Levin said. “There’s no way to describe that feeling. I didn’t know what to say.

I had to sit there for a few minutes and just look at him. Held his hand, and touched him, and finally, I don’t even remember what I said. I said good-bye and told him I loved him, and then I left. I can’t even remember what I said to him; it’s just overwhelming to see that.”

The doctors’ return from the recovery room came with the bittersweet news.

They were able to save each organ and find a needy body. His liver was going to a 60-year-old. His first kidney to a 57-year-old, his second to a 52-year-old. His pancreas: a 45-year-old. His heart was going to a 22-year-old who would have only had a few days left to live.

Bryan was the boy who gave everything, from a sympathetic ear for his friends to love and loyalty for his closest to a few vital organs for strangers. He couldn’t return the “I love you’s” and forehead kisses, but he didn’t need to.

“It struck me a couple days ago…he only got to live 17 years,” Severson said.

“And then I thought, ‘He got to live 17 years.’ And I was thankful God let me be a part of that. He got 17 years, and he lived it to the fullest. I guarantee he’s got no regrets.” Story by Tim Shedor.

BRYAN’S WAY Photos courtesy of the Barrow family.

SENIOR ADS 459

BE STRONG AND COURAGEOUS. DO NOT BE TERRIFIED; DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED,

T

hey stepped into the bleached room. The only noise was the artificial respirator, pumping into junior Bryan Barrow’s body to keep his organs alive.

His closest friends and family didn’t know how to react to the boy in the white bed, a boy who, standing, was rarely still or quiet. But this boy hadn’t moved a hair.

At 10:30 p.m. that Friday night, Bryan’s Volvo hit Brush Creek’s pines near 51st Street and Ward Parkway. He was wearing his seat belt when the red S40 side-swiped one tree at approximately 60 mph and then fishtailed into another.

The fire department cut him out of the passenger side when they arrived at the scene.

According to Kansas City, Mo. Police Department Captain Rich Lockhart, the most likely cause of the crash was excessive speed, but his family also believed he was on his cell phone or became distracted and simply lost control.

His spinal cord had severed at C2, just a few centimeters below his golden blonde hair. The paramedics had tried to revive him. Heart stopped. Blood pressure dropped. No movement.

It would be a miracle if his organs could be recovered and donated, as the heart on his driver’s license dictated. He was officially proclaimed “brain dead” the next morning.

“Bryan wanted everyone to be strong and courageous,” Bryan’s mother Anne Peterson-Barrow said. “Bryan’s way is to be strong and courageous. If he had survived the accident, he would have been paralyzed, and that wasn’t his way.

It was always Bryan’s way.” *** As soon as Bryan’s parents arrived in the St. Luke’s ER at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 14, they started making calls. They called his best friend - his brother Erik. They called his youth pastor. They called every family member, his best friends, his skating crew.

Only Bryan’s scarred face and thin upper foam of his neck brace shown outside the encompassing white sheet. His hand lay outside the blanket, the chain of his friend’s cross wrapped around his fingers.

Twenty-seven hours before, he ate his favorite peanut butter and waffle breakfast before he got ready for school. He passed the devotional book at his bedside table, buried under two well-worn Bibles, on the way to the bathroom.

He brushed his teeth in the mirror and faced the taped note. It read “Why I believe what I believe.”

“It literally was a statement of faith for him,” Hillcrest Covenant Church youth pastor Nate Severson said. “He would read that every day, so he would be reminded...to take what he believed and live it out. I’ve never had a kid tell me he loved me as much as Bryan does. Every time I see him, he’d come up and give me a big hug, and he’d say ‘I love you man,’ and I would say ‘I love you back.’”

After the “High Impact” youth retreat last June, where Bryan adventured in the deep Colorado mountains, where Severson helped reprioritize Bryan’s life with God first, Bryan started attending Sunday morning services in the youth

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center and meeting with a small group on Sunday nights. The small bedside devotional helped challenge his faith during the small group’s weekly meetings.

Severson had left for a mission trip on that Friday. A few hours after he landed in Anchorage, he got the call and was at the hospital bedside by 8:30 p.m.

Saturday night. *** Junior Adam Levin came to the bedside, next to Bryan just like the last 17 years. He had lived right next door and had been friends with Bryan since birth.

But Bryan didn’t look like Bryan. His ordinarily messy and tangled blonde hair was slicked back. It wasn’t supposed to be Bryan.

The lacerated and combed Bryan wasn’t the Bryan who watered the flowers outside everyday. He wasn’t the 10-year-old Bryan who mooned cars at Franklin Park. He wasn’t the summertime Bryan, the one who ran with Super Soakers and splashed in the hot tub.

“I don’t feel like I’ve just lost a friend,” Levin said. “A lot of my memories growing up here are with Bryan. When I think back on childhood, I’m going to think about Bryan. It’s like I’ve lost part of my life.”

But it was still Bryan in the pale white room. He was the one who loved and cared for his friends, and his friends loved him back. A few kissed him on his forehead, the only place without a scrape. Others just held his hand. The rest stayed across the room, too afraid to face this Bryan.

He was everyone’s friend. He greeted those he knew in the hall with a unique voice, from a high, Furby-like pitch for junior Dustin Ballard, to a fluctuating nasal tone for junior Brooks Williams. When he saw his former Spanish teacher Rose Detrixhe, he would give her a hug instead of an “Hola.”

“Bryan was always there,” Williams said. “He was such a helping friend, such a caring person. He was really selfless and worried about his friends or family. He was all about being happy and enjoying life. He just wanted to have a good time.”

*** Cousin Lars-Erik Brunk came to Bryan’s bedside. Lars-Erik didn’t see his future Colorado State roommate. He didn’t see his former competition, his former role-model, his friend.

Summertime was sublime for Lars-Erik and Bryan. They vacationed in Wisconsin with their grandma Ulla Brunk and their grandpa Bertil Brunk boating and wakeboarding over the still, blue, deep waters of Lake Geneva.

Morfar, affectionate Swedish for grandfather, and a young Bryan bonded over the black and ivory keys in Geneva by singing an improvised melody. He was only knee-high, but he followed every onomatopoeia, “Da doo doo da doo” melody, his Morfar sang and harmonized perfectly to the family gathered around.

“He had this fantastic way of looking at you,” Ulla said. “He could be just as sophisticated as he was goofy and just as charming. You couldn’t help but respect him.”

Bryan shared time between the Brunks in Geneva and the Barrows in Fulton,

FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL BE WITH YOU WHEREVER YOU GO. Mo. He would alternate between the crystal waters and the thick forests, loyal and loving to both sides of his immediate family.

In the thicket of Fulton, it was a slice of heaven. The A-Frame that served as a reunion hall for the family overlooked the original homestead: 600 acres of forest, plants and rocks, all waiting for Bryan to explore and pull out snakes or other critters.

“Bryan had a love for the outdoors and had an appreciation for God’s nature,” Anne said. “He was not one to be inside; he had to be out, just living life to the fullest. He was a real down-to-earth kid.” *** Bryan’s skating friends held a candlelight vigil at the bedside. He was surrounded by the small votives on that night, but the next day Bryan’s body would travel into the recovery room for surgery to donate his organs, and then later settle at Johnson County Memorial Gardens on the following Wednesday.

The next weekend, his friends and other skateboarders organized a barbeque and skating competition. The family donated all profits to Bryan’s memorial scholarship fund, which the family planned to grant to a graduating student in Bryan’s grade who they felt best embodied Bryan’s qualities.

A week before the crash, Bryan came home with a grin from ear to ear and a DVD in his hand. He had earned a sponsorship from Ride Forever, the skate shop he had loved to work at for the past six months.

The sponsorship gave him access to free gear, a new board every month and a few minutes in The Ride Forever Studio highlight video of their best skaters.

Those five minutes would have sealed a future Vans sponsorship, Bryan’s next major goal, just before an A in fourth quarter physics.

But that sponsorship had been his goal for the past school year, and it almost always came before homework or parties. He was determined. Cracks, pops and ollies sounded from the driveway on Linden Drive, regardless of how many times he fell.

“In jewelry class, I’d be like ‘what’s this new scrape from?’” Ballard said. “‘Oh, I just went down this 14-foot stair,’ [Bryan would say]. He was crazy.”

His first hospitalization was on his thirteenth birthday. It was raining, and he wanted to go with Erik to the skate park. His mom wanted to go out for ice cream. The ICU held him for two days after he smacked his head on the slippery concrete, but he left with only a few stitches and a minor concussion. “In the ambulance on the way to Children’s Mercy, I thought to myself ‘I hope I never have to go through this again,” Anne said. “I worried about him all the time when he was out skateboarding, or doing anything.”

Even when he wasn’t on his board, he was a natural athlete and played soccer for East during his three-year high school career. His cleats moved like a

dancer’s feet; it was like he was choreographed. A lucky fan would be able to glimpse his mouth, biting down on his tongue in determination, just like he’d done since preschool. Next season would be dedicated to Bryan and his legacy of fancy footwork on the grass.

“He had this smile,” head soccer coach Jaime Kelly said. “And whenever you saw this smile….it always kind of made you laugh and bring a smile to your face.” *** Before Bryan’s gurney moved down the hall, his family and friends held hands around the white, suddenly warm room. Severson led the prayer, hoping for a miracle that Bryan’s organs could be donated despite his condition and the doctor’s forebodings.

His Morfar sang “Tryggare Re Kan Ingen Vara,” the Swedish hymn “Children of the Heavenly Father,” as his last parting “Do do da da do do do.” The rest took turns saying their last good-byes, Bryan’s dad, Bruce, leaning in closely to tell him which friend was coming next.

“I just walked in, and you gotta take deep breaths before you walk into that room, because you can’t control tears from coming out of your eyes when you walk in there and see your best friend lying on the bed, completely, just gone,” Levin said. “There’s no way to describe that feeling. I didn’t know what to say.

I had to sit there for a few minutes and just look at him. Held his hand, and touched him, and finally, I don’t even remember what I said. I said good-bye and told him I loved him, and then I left. I can’t even remember what I said to him; it’s just overwhelming to see that.”

The doctors’ return from the recovery room came with the bittersweet news.

They were able to save each organ and find a needy body. His liver was going to a 60-year-old. His first kidney to a 57-year-old, his second to a 52-year-old. His pancreas: a 45-year-old. His heart was going to a 22-year-old who would have only had a few days left to live.

Bryan was the boy who gave everything, from a sympathetic ear for his friends to love and loyalty for his closest to a few vital organs for strangers. He couldn’t return the “I love you’s” and forehead kisses, but he didn’t need to.

“It struck me a couple days ago…he only got to live 17 years,” Severson said.

“And then I thought, ‘He got to live 17 years.’ And I was thankful God let me be a part of that. He got 17 years, and he lived it to the fullest. I guarantee he’s got no regrets.” Story by Tim Shedor.

BRYAN’S WAY Photos courtesy of the Barrow family.

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the

samaritan

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE LENGLE FAMILY.

Good

Sophomore dies after car accident, but his generosity is remembered.

A

t the funeral, friends and family of David Lengle listened to the story of the Good Samaritan, who cared for a stranger and expected nothing in return. The Reverend paralleled this sermon at the service Aug. 22 with the generosity the listeners saw in David.

The same David who gave advice to all his friends, said ‘hi’ to people he didn’t know in the halls and always said thank you no matter how small the favor.

Lengle was hit by a car shortly after 5 p.m. on Aug. 15 while attempting to cross the street at 77th and Metcalf, where he and a friend were walking from Quiktrip to the McDonalds across the street to rent a DVD. He was pronounced dead early the next morning at Overland Park Regional Center. He was 15.

Friends were planning on meeting at Lengle’s house to hang out later that night, but instead ended up at the hospital. When David’s girlfriend, junior Audrey Howell, arrived at the hospital, she found her boyfriend on a ventilator. Two people were allowed to go into his room at a time, to say goodbye.

His last act of generosity was to have his organs donated.

∑∑∑ Light shone through the pink and yellow stained glass in the church ceiling as Reverand Peter Rehwaldt officiated the service.

“As far as funerals go, this is not how it’s supposed to be,” Rehwaldt said. “High schoolers are supposed to go to football games with their friends. Not funerals. School dances. Not funerals. This was not how it was supposed to be.”

“He had a life to live,’ Howell said. “We planned on being together forever. We were going to have kids. Seven kids. He loved kids.”

∑∑∑ When Katie Lavender, mother of sophomore Jesse Lavender, David’s friend and neighbor, met David at 5-years-old, he struck her as an extremely polite boy. Because her husband coached basketball in elementary school, they gave David numerous rides to games and practices.

“He’s the only friend of Jesse’s that always thanked us for anything, even when we first met him,” Mrs. Lavender said.

When she heard about the accident, she was the one who took David’s mom to the hospital. She was with friends and her “second son” when he died. She was at the funeral remembering David playing football with Jesse.

A reception followed the funeral, where a slideshow showed pictures of Lengle. One baby picture of David playing in the snow.

Another with him sprawled in a pumpkin path. And another lying in a tire swing paired with his favorite quote by Bob Marley: “Live the life you love, love the life you live.”

∑∑∑ During the summers, Lengle helped his neighbors move, walked their dogs and assisted an elderly family with their yard work. Always generous. He was the one who thought of things to do when his friends were bored.

“He didn’t like being lazy, like me,” Lavender said with a laugh.

David and his friends would watch movies, play Frisbee and walk to the creek with Lengle’s black lab-collie mix, Murphy. He walked everywhere, and didn’t like wearing shoes. He had gotten a staph infection after he stepped on a rock while playing Frisbee barefoot, and had to be on crutches most of the summer.

“That really hurt him,”sophomore Russell Philpott said. “He said he was going crazy being inside.”

Even at night he was looking for some way to entertain himself.

When sophomore Quan Brunt was the first one to fall asleep one night, Lengle put shaving cream on his ears, face and nose.

“I woke up and then fell back asleep,” Brunt said. “And then he did it again. He’d always be up, ready to do something else.”

But Lengle was also the friend who let Brunt sleep in his bed, while David slept on the floor. Always generous.

∑∑∑ After Reverand Rehwaldt told the story of the Good Samaritan, he explained how David knew how to love God and love his neighbor.

“You all smiled when you saw one another earlier,” Rehwaldt said, addressing the more than 100 people who attended. “The love David showed is the same love you are showing to each other.”

More than half the East wrestling team attended, all sitting in the same row. Lengle wrestled his freshman year.

“He worked really hard,” wrestling coach Chip Ufford said. “He was not very outspoken but right in the middle of the pack. He did a good job doing just what he needed to do.”

Some students at the funeral said they barely knew David, but had said ‘hi’ to him in the hallways or had a class with him. Though Lengle’s closest friends were those who had gone to Tomahawk

GENEROUS ◊ POLITE ◊ THANKFUL ◊ HARDWORKING ◊ 460 SENIOR ADS

Elementary with him, he had a wide circle of friends.

“I’d see him in the hallways,” sophomore Mark Mergen said.

“Some kids would just blow you off, but he’d say ‘hi.’ He was understanding of people and what they needed.”

∑∑∑ “I love you.”

The last text message Howell received from David while she was at work was random. Rarely would he send a message out of the blue, unless he had a question.

“I love you more,” Howell sent back in her text message to him.

“The text message had been opened and read,” Howell said.

“The last thing he saw from me said, ‘I love you more.’”

This was not how it was supposed to be. But Lengle’s group of friends grewn closer after David’s death, according to Howell. They sent text messages to each other during school, asked how each other was doing. When they listened to Sublime, David’s favorite band, they looked up, saying out loud, “this is for you David.”

“Maybe that was one of God’s reasons, to bring us closer,” Howell said.

Howell knows David wouldn’t want them to be sad. He’d want them to be happy, go on with their lives. Always generous.

“Some people have a limit on how much they can give,” Howell said. “For David, there was no limit.” Story by Tim Shedor.

◊ LOVING ◊ HELPFUL ◊ UNDERSTANDING ◊ GIVING SENIOR ADS 461

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY.

EDGAR

LOZANIA-FLOREZ

AFTER ONLY TWO WEEKS AT EAST, JUNIOR EDGAR LOZANIA-FLOREZ WAS SHOT AND KILLED IN A GANG-RELATED INCIDENT IN KANSAS CITY, KANSAS.

“S

omebody shot Edgar in the heart.”

Juan Lozania couldn’t believe what his daughter was telling him. He closed El Texano, his small auto shop on Osage Road and hurried to the Inner City Oil Co. where the shooting had happened.

“I didn’t know he was in the hospital or anywhere,” Lozania said. “I wanted to go there and see what happened.”

He arrived only to discover that his step-son, junior Edgar Lozania-Florez, had been rushed to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do to save him from the bullet wounds to the chest.

Lozania didn’t understand. He couldn’t.

“That day he went by here, but an hour before that happened,” Lozania said. “He was with one of his friends. They rolled by, and he called me, yelled at me, happy. The next hour, he was shot.”

He didn’t know the details and even now, he’s still figuring them out.

According to the Kansas City, Kansas police report, the shooting was an act of juvenile gang violence. The Wyandotte county district attorney has charged 15-year-old Omar Hernandez with first-degree murder and criminal possession of a fire-arm. The police are still searching for 19-year-old Nestor J. Ardon in connection with the murder.

Edgar was a recent transfer student from J.C. Harmon High School. He spent only two weeks at East.

∑∑∑ Sophomore Breana Gray was one of his first friends to hear the news. She had grown close to Edgar after he arrived at East.

“He asked me like everyday to be his girlfriend,” Gray said.

“He always told me, ‘I’ll do everything for [you],’ stuff like that.

He would text me…he didn’t even have a phone; he’d text me on other people’s phones just to see how I was doing.”

He liked Breana and he did everything to be near her. He walked her to classes, put his arm around her and stored his books in her locker.

Two weeks ago, Gray broke up with her boyfriend and Edgar was right there, holding her hand, asking if she would be his girl. She said it hadn’t even been 24 hours since the breakup. He said he could wait until the end of the day.

That Friday Breana told Edgar that she wouldn’t be his girl.

He was angry and went to the nurse’s office saying he was sick, wanting to go home. He was supposed to be picked up.

“Instead of leaving right then, he waited after class and took me out to lunch,” Gray said. “We were sitting with all my friends. He sat with me and he grabbed my hand under the table and tried to hold it…I kind of pushed him away. That was the last time I saw him.”

That’s not the last time she heard from him, though. He was still texting her Tuesday afternoon.

“You know that I want to be with you. I’ll do everything for you. I won’t do you wrong.”

The last words she ever read.

“I need you Breana.”

She didn’t respond. He sent it again during class.

“I need you Breana.”

∑∑∑

Edgar saw East as an opportunity to work to be somebody according to his step-dad.

“He wanted to be in your guy’s school so badly,” Lozania said. “He used to tell me that he didn’t get along too good [at Harmon].”

Harmon was where most of his friends went to school, and Edgar’s ex-girlfriend, East junior Milly Roque, said most of them were in gangs.

“He wasn’t in [the gang], but he represented it,” Roque said. “To get in a gang, basically you have to do something to get in the gang. [His friends] told me he wasn’t in it.”

A group even showed up at his funeral on Saturday morning at Christ the King church, where they placed a blue bandanna, sunglasses and a black Kansas City Royals cap on his still chest.

Lozania wanted to know the truth.

“I asked them, ‘Hey was he a part of you guys? They told me ‘No, he wasn’t a part of us. He wanted to be a part of us.’

I don’t know. I don’t doubt he hung out with some of the guys that are in the gangs that are real bad.”

It was something that Gray and Edgar would joke about during school, flashing each other rival gang signs and then laughing afterwards. But after his death, she opened her locker and found the books he had left there. She returned most of them to the office but kept his binder that was covered in gang signs he had drawn.

I knew he was serious about his gang,” Gray said, “but I didn’t know he was dead serious.”

But Edgar wanted more than that. He wanted to help his dad and stay in school.

“One day he told me ‘You know, I want to be somebody dad, because I want to get you out of the shop. I don’t want to see you work all the time,” Lozania said. “He said ‘Yep, I’m going to work for that.’”

∑∑∑ The funeral came on a foggy Saturday morning at Christ the King Church. The casket was open and friends and family cried near his body. His mother, Andrea, would not get out of the car. Roque went out to get her.

“I walked her to the funeral and everything,” Roque said.

“She told me ‘He’s just asleep, he’s just asleep.”

The Mass began. The worst part for Milly wasn’t walking Andrea to the funeral or even seeing Edgar’s body.

“What hit me the most was that he had a little cousin that was like four who was behind who was just screaming ‘God why did you take him? Why did you take him? He didn’t deserve to die. Why did they kill him?’”

That was something the whole family still asked themselves. No matter what charges were filed or what convictions were reached, Lozania knew they wouldn’t bring Edgar back.

“It would be a lot different if he was sick or something,” Lozania said. “That prepares you a little bit more for something like that. But when somebody takes away one of the members of your family with no reasons in one second…I feel like I want to go with him.” Story by Paige Cornwell and Bernadette Myers.

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