Colton Stensaas will be buried today near his home in Norway, Kan., five days after he fell to his death in the rugged rock country of Custer State Park.

But that is not the story his friends and family will share as they gather for a memorial service on the football field of Pine Valley High School in nearby Scandia, where Colton attended school and excelled in sports. Instead, they'll talk about a lanky boy with crop of blond hair and a ready smile, an accomplished athlete who made an instant impression that was difficult to forget.

"Colton was the youngest of three, very outgoing and personable, just a happy-go-lucky kid," Neal Combs of Atchinson, Kansas, a cousin of the Stensaas family, said by telephone Friday. "Anybody who met him once would just have to smile thinking about him."

Those smiles will dampen with tears today as the close-knit farming community in the fertile Republican River valley of northern Kansas gathers to support a grieving family and share, in whispered bits and pieces, details of the tragic end to a carefree Black Hills vacation.

Colton came to the Black Hills with his older brother, Nate, and friends for a summer adventure, Combs said.

"Nate had graduated this year, and it was kind of a fun senior getaway with some friends. He encouraged Colton to go along," Combs said. "They were very, very close."

The 16-year-old high school junior - an exceptional athlete who already had won two state sprint titles in track - fell 30 to 40 feet while climbing among granite spires along the Sunday Gulch Trail below Sylvan Lake.

An already horrid situation was even more heart-wrenching because his brother Nate was the first on the scene after the accident, Combs said.

"Nate heard him fall, came back and found him," Combs said. "Essentially, he died on the fall."

But Colton Stensaas will live today in the tender recollections of those who knew and loved him. A wide receiver and running back on the football field, Colton also was an increasingly skilled basketball player who this year won state titles in the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

"He was 6-foot-2 as a sophomore, just growing into his body and had good speed already," Combs said. "He was very athletic."

He was also part of the family's irrigated corn-farming operation, although he hadn't decided whether that would be his career.

"He hadn't gotten that far. His older brother is more the farmer type," Combs said. "Colton was so happy-go-lucky that I don't know if he thought much past yesterday."

Now thoughts of yesterdays with Colton will endure as bittersweet treasures among the Stensaas family - including Colton's father, Joe, who offered a single quote about his youngest child.

"He was a great son," Joe Stensaas said. "He made a lot of people happy."

Contact Kevin Woster at 394-8413 or kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com