Students create memorial mural for remembering fallen friends

Sixteen-year-old Tyler Jeffers said he knew most of the two dozen young people memorialized in a class project on Thursday.

They were friends and classmates, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, all young stars extinguished before their time.

"There were maybe four of them I didn't know," Jeffers said.

He was one of more than 30 students on the front lawn of the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center on Thursday. The students were from the school district's alternative education program, ASPIRE, which stands for All Students Pursuing Integrity, Responsibility and Education.

Half the students worked unloading topsoil on one corner of the lawn, mounding the earth and planting flowers. The other students were on the west side of the museum, spread out on drop cloths, painting two 4-by-10-foot signboards.

For a month and a half students had planned the memorial mural as a community project.

"We've lost so many people in the Valley, and this is a way to remember them," said 17-year-old junior Alejah Miller.

Miller said two of her own close friends who passed away were included in the project.

"The best part is knowing the parents are going to be happy about it," she said.

ASPIRE teacher Miki Trujillo said students contacted families of the deceased.

"The families came up with the symbols, and the kids did the artwork," she said.

Two local artists, Martin Montgomery and Michelle Gabler, helped the kids paint the sign boards. Each board was given a background of green fields, blue mountains, and a deep colorful sky with both sun and moon.

Scattered across the two boards were more than 20 symbols, each representing a young person who's passed. A snowboarder. A gray dolphin. A radiant butterfly perched on a cross. These were some of the symbols families chose to evoke the memories of their loved ones.

Britt Mattinson, Cory Jackson and Nicole Snyder were just a few of the young people symbolized, but Trujillo said names were not included in the memorial because she and her students wanted everyone to be able to identify with the symbols.

"The parents who gave us the symbols know which ones are for their children," she said. "The project has evolved into a memorial mural that is meant to bring peace and comfort not only to the family and friends of the young people we knew of, but any community members who have lost a loved one. Inside the museum is a memory book that anyone can sign."

Outside, the students dug a path between the flower beds where three stone plaques would eventually lie. Students had carved messages in the stones.

"In memory of the young people of our Valley who have passed away, we love you, we miss you, we celebrate your lives," one plaque read. "This mural was designed to bring you (visitors) comfort and peace. Please sign our memory book inside the museum to honor those you have loved and lost."

Behind the flower beds, three thick posts had been set in the ground, forming an L-shaped frame on which the mural boards would be hung. A space was also provided for a bench.

Jeffers said the shape of the memorial suggests a butterfly.

"More than a third of the families we talked to wanted butterflies for their symbols," he said. "This will be a place to just think about stuff."

The memorial's dedication will be 11:45 a.m. Thursday.

Trujillo thanked a number of businesses and people for their help with the project, including Subway, Tom Ediss Landscaping, Plant It Nursery, Pete Beekhof, Gary Williams, Grace Bower of the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center, and John and Patti Snyder.