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Community pours out to remember Columbia River’s Hunter Pearson

Senior football player presumably drowned Saturday

By Meg Wochnick, Columbian staff writer
Published: May 29, 2017, 9:12pm
3 Photos
Columbia River High School senior Ethan Adams, 18, in tan and black shirt, and junior Ryan Connop, 17, right, lean on each other for support as they pause to honor the memory of their friend, Hunter Pearson, on the school’s football field Monday evening, May 29, 2017. Hunter Pearson, a senior and football player, presumably drowned Saturday in a swimming accident at Lacamas Lake. Students wore Hawaiian shirts to honor his sense of style.
Columbia River High School senior Ethan Adams, 18, in tan and black shirt, and junior Ryan Connop, 17, right, lean on each other for support as they pause to honor the memory of their friend, Hunter Pearson, on the school’s football field Monday evening, May 29, 2017. Hunter Pearson, a senior and football player, presumably drowned Saturday in a swimming accident at Lacamas Lake. Students wore Hawaiian shirts to honor his sense of style. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian) Photo Gallery

The 30-yard line at Columbia River High School’s Chieftain Stadium was quiet, except for occasional sounds of crying or slaps of a back as people embraced. Fitting in a way, in remembrance of a well-known student-athlete who was soft spoken, because words were not Hunter Pearson.

“He had a way of uniting everyone without saying a word,” teammate Mason Schell said.

Still, fellow senior Allison Frank said, “when he spoke, you heard him.”

Frank helped organized Monday’s vigil attended by at least 500 to honor Pearson, the 18-year-old Columbia River senior who presumably drowned Saturday in Lacamas Lake, Camas police said.

Everyone from students and community members to opposing players and even strangers flooded to the 30-yard marker — his jersey number was 30 — on the south end of the football field to share hugs and listen to stories about a guy known for his tireless work ethic and competitiveness in football, yet equally kind-hearted and gentle as they come.

10 Photos
Columbia River High School students held flowers as they remembered their friend and teammate, Hunter Pearson, on Monday evening, May 29, 2017.
Remembering Hunter Pearson Photo Gallery

River head football coach Christian Swain coached Pearson for one season, but puts him in elite group of exceptional kids he’s coached in his nearly 20 years. He labels Pearson as the complete package because “he really reflected everything we want from a young person,” he said.

“He’s a person we point back to for many, many years as an example of what we all strive to be in our community, and what our student-athletes look like — reflect the quality that we represent in every way,” Swain said.

On the field, Swan described Pearson as River’s equivalent of ex-Seahawk Marshawn Lynch — Beastmode, shown by the plethora of Skittles bags left at the River Rock over the past 48 hours — as an all-league running back and outside linebacker. Last fall, Pearson rushed for nearly 1,000 yards and scored eight touchdowns in the Chieftains’ 5-5 season.

Yet that strength also was demonstrated by how gentle he was off the field. He was a model student, and recently honored at an assembly for perfect attendance.

But his passion for football was second to none.

His dreams included playing in the NFL, and earned a preferred walk-on roster spot at Utah State. Swain said Aggies head coach Matt Wells was devastated by the news when the two spoke by phone Sunday. As a preferred walk-on, Pearson would have made the 105-man roster.

“He had a bright future,” Swain said.

Frank, a senior classmate who knew Pearson since sixth grade, said the pair’s friendship strengthened over their final two years of high school.

With Pearson, she said, you didn’t have to do anything extraordinary to have fun and make memories. Sometimes, it was his one-liners that made you stop and think, “only Hunter Pearson would say that.” Other times, Pearson would tag along to be the third-wheel with Frank and her boyfriend, quarterback Anthony Jenkins.

That’s the fun-loving Pearson, she said.

Schell was teammates with Pearson since the two were eighth graders. Since hearing the news of Pearson’s death when Schell was in Tacoma competing at the track and field state championships Saturday, he immediately began inquiries about how to get Pearson’s jersey number retired.

Without question, he said, it’s important to him because Pearson exemplifies better than nobody what it means to be a Chieftain, taking the school’s ACE core values — Attitude, Commitment and Effort — to heart.

“He’s the best,” Schell said. “He lived by all of those everyday.”

And, at the very least, as long as Swain is head coach, “there will never be a No. 30 that plays football at Columbia River.”

A funeral service is pending.

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