Denny Stong, 20, of Boulder, Colo., loved riding motorcycles and flying model airplanes, and he dreamed of becoming a pilot.
To earn money for lessons at flight school, Stong, the youngest of the10 people fatally shotMonday at Boulder grocery store King Soopers, worked there as a cashier, shelf stocker and doing “anything they wanted,” recalls Laura Spicer, whose son Ben, 20, became best friends with Stong after meeting him in middle school.
“Denny was a gregarious kid,” says Spicer. “Always had something to do and somewhere to go. He really grew up when he decided that he really wanted to become a pilot.”
The day of the shooting, Stong saved lives, friend James Noland wrote on a verifiedGoFundMe pagehe started for Stong’s family.
“I’m hearing from different people that Denny was not just a victim,” he wrote, “but a hero who guided people out of the store through the back and was leading people to safety before losing his life.”
Denny Stong.Facebook
“He simply showed up to work,” wrote Nolan, “and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
A 2019 graduate of Fairview High in Boulder, Stong wore a Santa hat to class each day of every December, recalled his former teacher there of three years there, Amy Nelson,to 9 News. “I thought about the Santa hat,” she told the station, noting he also carried a speaker between classes and played “old soul or holiday music.”
Outside of school and work, Stong rode dirt bikes and motorcycles, says Spicer, and enjoyed flying model airplanes. In 2018 he joined the Boulder Aeromodeling Society with his father, and held an active membership through the end of 2020, says president Aidan Sesnic in a statement.
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He was also a history buff planning to take part in a Civil War reenactment,reportsThe Denver Post.
Stong had a girlfriend, she says, and felt optimistic about his future.
“Back in like November, I think it was, I asked him how things were going,” recalls Spicer. “He made a gesture with his hand, like you would a plane getting off the tarmac, you know, going up in the air. And he said, ‘I’m flying.’ And he meant like in life.”
source: people.com
