As we humans mature, our minds often reminisce about our school days. We return to crisp nights at the football field, cheering with our fall boys and singing “Sweet Caroline” with the band.  We drift through the magic of a musical production or the delight of a comical assembly. We wander the hallways and classrooms filled with history, language, creation, exploration and friends, always precious friends who remain a part of our lives as we move through the next phases of living.

There are a few, however, who are no longer with us. Our memories are all we have of them, for they graduated from mortal living and moved on to heaven early. As we mourn the loss of these dear young friends, we keep a place in our hearts reserved just for them, and we create space in our community in tribute to them.

Star Valley High School had done just that. Sometime, years ago, a memorial space for students who had passed away during their school years was installed on the school’s south lawn between the student parking lot and Swift Creek Lane.  This enormous boulder bore four plaques inscribed with the names of students who had been lost in their school years.

During a campus cleanup in the spring of 2024, then Junior Ashlyn Kallgren and some of her classmates discovered the SVHS memorial Park, but didn’t realize what it was.  Upon asking a teacher, she was told that it was a memorial for students who had passed away while attending the school. “It occurred to me that none of my classmates knew what this was,” Ashlyn told this reporter. She also recognized that at least one student she knew of who had passed away was not represented on the memorial. The name of Ryder Haderlie, who passed away in the fall of 2018, was absent.  “I didn’t know Ryder super well,” Ashlyn admitted, but she remembered that his nature was to “uplift others and smile always. I also realized that there were most likely names missing of other students who had also touched lives.”

Gently, a plan began to form in her mind. Several months later, in the second trimester of her senior year, she put that plan into action through her Senior Capstone project and began the process of restoring and updating the memorial site.

With approval from her Captone teacher, Mr. Aaron Lancaster, who thought it would be an “awesome project,” Ashlyn recruited her father, Jeremy, and her two sisters, Brooke and Anna, to help her design and build new plaques for the memorial.

With dedicated research assistance from SVHS Principal Farren Haderlie and Counseling Secretary Heather Warren, Ashlyn added six names to the list of students who needed to be included on the memorial.

Brooke taught Ashlyn how to use a Computer Aided Drafting program for design of the new plaques that would bear the name and graduation year of each student who had passed away. Anna helped Ashlyn learn to run the plasma cutter at PC Industries, which is owned and operated by the Kallgren Family, and which generously supplied all the materials and equipment needed to create ten new stainless-steel plaques. Proficiency with several additional tools was also required, and Ashlyn learned to use all of them as her team worked to remove slag from the plates, then sand and polish them.

PC Industries employee Caulen Herzog painted the memorial sign in conjunction with a work project. The team cut and welded supports on the plates, cleaned the plates a second time, and then prepared for installation that would require drilling the rock and using epoxy to secure the plates in place on the boulder.

“As for the piece of travertine that had a beautiful quote on it, the quote was fading and it had some moss growing on it, so we took it off and I scrubbed it clean, then repainted the words of the quote. Then, we made a plate that states ‘In Memory of our Classmates’ and welded it to the top of a frame which we also repainted and installed with everything else.”

Ashlyn estimates that it took her over 40 hours of research, learning and work to complete the process. That number does not include all the time that her team members donated “to make this project a success.” Though she began the process near the end of 2024, the weather made it impossible to complete the installation until the snow had melted.

Only days before her graduation and three months after she completed her Senior Capstone class, Ashlyn, Jeremy, Anna and Ashlyn’s mother, Correne, gathered and spent their Memorial Day installing the new components to the memorial.

Unlike the ten youth whose names are now on the freshly restored memorial, Ashlyn is planning for life after high school. She hopes to train as a wildland firefighter hone her leadership skills and continue with some musical studies playing the snare drum.

She is extremely grateful to everyone who helped make this restoration possible, particularly her family, who contributed so much time, knowledge and resources, and school administrators and staff members who offered patience and trust.

“It was a very special experience to learn so much and to be able to install everything on Memorial Day. I just felt that all our fellow students who have passed needed to be remembered and honored.”

If anyone is aware of names that still need to be added to the memorial, please notify Farren Haderlie at SVHS.