Carson High School mourns students who died in scuba accident
Submitted by editor on Mon, 04/11/2011 - 5:43pm
Carson High School students, faculty and staff mourned the loss of two of their own Monday with a memorial at the Carson City campus parking lot following a tragic scuba diving accident on Saturday in Monterey Bay.
Stephen Anderson, 16, and Keegan Aiazzi, 17, both CHS juniors who had recently become certified scuba divers, died of apparent drowning after they went missing during a dive in the bay.
The bodies of the young men were located together with empty air tanks on the sea floor following a 2.5 hour search. Authorities who were on the scene consider the deaths accidental.
The outing to Monterey, attended by 19 students and their families, was a non-school sanctioned event, organized and sponsored by a Reno scuba diving business, Carson City School District Superintendent Richard Stokes said. A Carson High School science teacher accompanied the students on the outing.
The boys were popular, well-revered students, involved in football and other school activities.
"This is a tremendous loss to our school and community and our hearts go out to their families," Stokes said.
The memorial on Monday took place in school parking lot spaces used by Stephen and Keegan, and was adorned with flowers, crosses, pictures and athletic equipment.
Students were allowed to visit the memorial throughout the day, many using the time to pray and embrace one another. Many students wrote personal messages on the asphalt as well as having left personal handwritten notes among the many flower bouquets.
As a well-intentioned measure of concern for the grieving students, high school officials blocked media access to the memorial and wouldn't allow the press to speak with students. Later in the day, however, television cameras were allowed access.
Fellow Carson Senator football player and senior Dalton Simpson, 18, spoke with Carson Now after school ended. He remembered his teammates as "great fun-loving kids that you'd trade jokes with" to help pass the time with practice.
"When you spend as many hours as we did together, conditioning and practicing, you become family and that's what they were," Simpson said.
As a certified scuba diver himself but who did not attend this outing, Simpson said scuba diving, "like any activity, has its share of risk."
After visiting the memorial several times on Monday, Simpson said he hopes the community will respect the wishes of the families and whatever decisions they make about future memorials.
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