Crash Victim Eulogized as a Smiling Teen

While students at an Irvine high school grieved Tuesday for a classmate struck and killed by a car this week, the boy’s teachers prepared to commemorate his life.

Arturo “Alex” Alvarez, 15, was killed Monday afternoon when a driver lost control of her car and hit the boy as he sat on the curb outside Arnold O. Beckman High School.

Classmates of Arturo, known as “Alex,” remembered him as a soccer fanatic who wore a perpetual smile and was a talented musician who anchored the school band with his tuba.

Stuart McGinn said he was devastated when he learned that the ambulance racing to campus Monday had come for his friend. The two had played soccer during the summer, and he said they shared dreams about playing professionally.

“I said bye yesterday, and I didn’t think it would be the last time I would see him,” Stuart said.

School officials said dozens of students met with 10 grief counselors Tuesday. Some students wrote their feelings on butcher paper set up in the school library; others left cards and flowers at a makeshift memorial at a school gate near where Alex was killed.

When the school band takes the stage Monday night for its Veterans Day concert, Alex’s chair will be filled with flowers and his tuba.

Music teacher Jim Kollias said he first met Alex at nearby Columbus Tustin Middle School. When Tustin Unified School District announced plans to open Beckman High School at the start of this year, Kollias encouraged Alex to enroll.

“I told him he would be getting a great new tuba,” he said.

Kollias said that when Alex, along with nearly 1,000 other students, showed up for the school’s first days, he was pleased to encounter a young man who had matured since his middle-school years.

“If there was a kid we wanted to call our role model, he was it,” said Kollias, adding that Alex had thrived in the classroom as well as on the music stage and soccer field.

Irvine Police Lt. Mike Hamel said an investigation was continuing into how 73-year-old Susan Oh lost control of the Hyundai Elantra she was driving.

Hamel said that if investigators determined a crime was committed, police would submit a report to the Orange County district attorney’s office, which would determine whether charges would be filed.

Oh, of Tustin, has a valid driver’s license and a clean record, according to California Department of Motor Vehicle records.

As have most schools across the county and state, Beckman has a traffic plan to handle the daily rush of cars shuttling students. In a state that ranks last in school-bus use, California principals have been forced to hire whistle-blowing traffic controllers and plastic lane dividers in an attempt to keep students safe.

Statewide, more than 500 students die each year in transportation accidents during typical school rush hours -- most of them while driving themselves or with a parent.

Orange County drivers are among the worst offenders in the nation when it comes to driving irresponsibly in school zones, according to a 2000 survey released by the National Safe Kids Campaign, a child safety advocacy group.

Alex’s death left parents shaken.

“You think the kids will go to school and come home. You never imagine something like this,” said Bernadette McGinn, Stuart’s mother.

Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Westminster Memorial Park. There will be a visitation at the funeral home from 3 to 8 p.m. Friday.

The Parent Teacher Organization at Beckman has announced a memorial fund to help Alex’s family.

Alex’s friends will continue to try to make sense of their loss. McGinn said he would remember that, though the school soccer team didn’t win many games, his friend “was always positive. He was always smiling.”

Another classmate, Alicia Young, said Alex was “one of those people who everyone knew. He was just really nice. He never did or said anything bad. He would say hi. It was those little things.”

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Times staff writer Mai Tran contributed to this report.