OCR Text |
Show Steves lifes fall of joy 22. IIIKA 1PS f fw STEVEN MURRAY If there was one word to summarize summa-rize Steven Murray's life, it is "Joy"... And if there is one word to summarize his death, it is tragic." But semantics don't tell the story of Steve Murray. His life was too varied and his death too choking to fit a one-word description. He was a young man with an ensemble en-semble of interests, an 18-year old headed for a career in dentistry. Unfortunately, on Aug. 2, he was also headed to Willard Bay, a site he had enjoyed some 10 times previously pre-viously this summer. He, his friend and their two girl friends became tired of boating and, like many of the 450,000 annual visitors to the Bay, they dove into the waters to cool off. His friend, Corey Olsen, last saw him perched on a small ridge only a few feet above the water. Steve winked his intentions: He planned on diving under the water to prank-ishly prank-ishly grab his girlfriend's leg. He dove. But the leg he grabbed wasn't his girlfriend's. Some ten feet below the water Steve felt the suction from a 30-foot wide pipe formerly used to pump water from Wilard Bay to the other side of the Great Salt Lake. The pipe was un-grated un-grated and the suction was too strong. Steve's "grab" was at Casey's leg, but no human could compensate. Steve was swirled into the pipe at 4:30 p.m. His body would not be found until almost 24 hours later. By 6 p.m. the Box Elder County Sheriffs Department had arrived. By 7:15 p.m. his parents Steve and Bernice were notified. "We were just leaving for dinner," din-ner," recalls his mother, "when a knock came on the door. It was a local policeman telling us there had been an accident and that Steve was gone." "My first reaction was one of disbelief," says his father. "Our younger son Shawn ripped out of the house and drove up to the Bay. But I couldn't go up I was too stunned. It was all so sudden. You had to know our Steve..." And many did. He was a teenage version of the Renaissance Man, a scrappy kid who competed in football, foot-ball, track and wrestling, an involved in-volved young man who scored top grades and sang in the Concert Choir, a boy who favored rock music but who also set his radio dial for classical music and operas... oper-as... And especially a recent gradu-., ate who enjoyed his school. "He was so excited about View-mont View-mont High School," recalls his mother. "There was so much to learn and so much to do at the school. It boggled his mind that some students didn't enjoy school as much as he did. I remember several sev-eral years ago when he was stricken strick-en by a rare blood disease. Steve had to stay home for some period of time and yet all he could talk about was getting back to school. One late night I went into his bedroom bed-room and he was sitting on his bed and still wearing his Viewmont letter let-ter jacket. The jacket meant a lot to him. The school mean a lot to him." Paul Waite, his assistant principal princip-al who spoke at his funeral, remembers remem-bers Steve well. "He's not the type of student you ever forget," says Waite. "He had goals and ambitions, but he struggling to succeed in a track program plagued with "inferior, bent" equipment, met Steve Murray Mur-ray at a competitive athletic meet. " Your son saw how frustrated and disappointed our boy was with the javelin he was using-and he let our son use his own javelin so he could participate and have a chance for success. Our son will never forget this gesture from Steve Murray-and Murray-and we won't either." The Murrays are considering selling their boat, disclaiming any interest in future water recreation. As the years pass, that might change. ..But that letter won't change. It will remain in their family fami-ly album, an unsolicited testament in black and white of a colorful young man's life. He was a Viewmont boy, 18 and very proud. (Note: Contributions to the Steven Murray Viking Spirit Scholarship Scho-larship Fund should be directed to Paul Waite at Viewmont High School. The annual recipient will be a young man or woman, well-rounded well-rounded in academics, athletics and activities, who normally would not receive numerous scholarship offers. The monies are to be used for tuition to any public university or college in Utah.) also wanted to savor every minute of high school life. If he saw me walking down the hall, he'd go out of his way to walk over and shake my hand. Earlier this year I saw him and some friends boating at Lake Powell, and we relaxed for awhile and just chatted. Steve had poise and maturity that you don't find too often in an 18-year old. Viewmont was lucky to have him." And, in a sense, it still does. Steve and Bernice have established estab-lished a scholarship fund in tribute to their son. The Steven Murray Viking Spirit Scholarship has been initially funded with Steve's $4,000 savings, with more monies planned from a pending lawsuit. "Hopefully the money will grow into a trust so that a young man or woman can receive a full tution scholarship," says his father, "listen, "lis-ten, we don't need the money-and I know darn well that this is the way Steve would want the money spent. If there's any good that can come out of his death it will be that Willard Bay will be a safer place for recreation-and that a Viewmont graduate will be able each year to continue his or her dream of an education. "Steve had that dream. That dream will continue." For the Murrays, life is still a tear-stained day-by-day struggle, punctuated by letters and condolence condo-lence cards. But one letter told more about Steve than any obituary obitu-ary ever could. It was sent by the parents of an athlete who attends a different high school. ..It was sent by people whom Steve and Bernice have never met. The letter told of how their son, |