OREM — For members of the Utah Valley State College faculty and staff, losing a student is hard. Losing three is almost unbearable.
"On behalf of the institution, we're devastated at the news," said Melynda Burt, spokeswoman for UVSC.
The tragedy began early Thursday morning when four friends, Jennifer Lynn Galbraith, 21; Ariel Singer, 18; J. Blake Donner, 24; and Scott Kelran McDonald, 28, started exploring a cave on Y mountain in Provo. The group made it safely from a small cave through an underwater tunnel to a small second cave. But on their way back, one of the hikers got stuck in the narrow underwater passageway and drowned, blocking the way for the other hikers, who also drowned.
Galbraith, Donner and McDonald had all attended UVSC, creating a loss that will be felt across the campus. However, the pain is compounded by the fact that Donner's mother, Laura Hamblin, and Jennifer's mother, Dorice Galbraith, are employed by UVSC: Hamblin as an assistant professor in the School of Humanities — part of the Department of English and Literature — and Galbraith as an administrative support employee in the department.
"We were deeply saddened to learn not only about the loss of two of their outstanding students (Jennifer Galbraith and Blake Donner), but also that these fine individuals were children of English Department faculty and staff," according to the statement. "The families will be in our thoughts and prayers, and we hope they know of our great concern for their welfare as they deal with their grief. We also wish to extend heartfelt condolences to the family of another outstanding UVSC student involved in the accident, Scott K. McDonald, a behavioral sciences major. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family as well."
John Goshert, and English professor, said he knew both Galbraith and Donner and said their energy was a defining characteristic.
"The main thing that stands out for me about both of them is just a great deal of passion for life," he said.
Goshert knew Galbraith through a literature class and said he was impressed by her intellectual passion, a real desire to make the most of her time in school.
Galbraith had been enrolled for fall semester 2005 but her family requested that her classes be dropped Friday morning, Burt said. Donner, a philosophy major, had most recently attended for a spring term and McDonald last attended in fall 2004, as a behavioral science major.
UVSC has created memorial scholarships in all three of the students' names through the School of Humanities.
But for philosophy professor Dennis Potter, Thursday's events are still difficult to digest. Potter had worked with Donner for three years, in five different classes.
"Blake wasn't really merely my student," Potter said. "He was a comrade and friend."
Donner, who was nearing graduation, loved social philosophy and saw great injustice in the world. Potter said his student worked to create theoretical frameworks that could help him understand how to transform society. But Donner not only worked on academics, he also shared his beliefs through music.
"Blake was an activist and artist whose lifestyle truly reflected his values," Potter said. "He was the lead singer of Parallax, whose (song) lyrics involve a deep reflection on the alienation produced by our consumerist society. Of all the students I have had over my six years at UVSC, Blake was the most authentic."
Parallax had performed the night before the accident, and Friday, the day after the accident, Donner was supposed to preview the band's first album after it was mastered, his friend Kevin Spring wrote on the band's Web site.
"Blake was a visionary and a revolutionary role model in our modern day hard-core/punk scene," Spring writes in a memorial to his best friend. "He was the nicest person I've ever met, and he was one of the few that cared more for others than he cared for himself."
Goshert said Donner had a great talent for creating songs that were aggressive, passionate and politically engaged.
"I definitely got the sense that kids in Provo really look up to Blake, saw him as a person who was worth listening to," he said. "(He was) someone they felt was worth seeing as a role model."
"Momentum" was one of Donner's songs from the upcoming Parallax album. With his philosophical background and sensitive side he wrote:
"We are the means. We are the ends. I'm not destined to indifference. There is still so much to give."
E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com