N.Y. teens turn to faith in coping with tragic deaths of friends

Published: 2007-09-10

FAIRPORT, N.Y. (CNS) -- In the face of eight deaths of their fellow students in the past year, many teens at Fairport High School in a small town outside Rochester have turned to their faith for comfort and strength. "Right after it happened I had a lot of questions. ... But I think my faith strengthened," said Colleen Feeney, a parishioner at the Church of the Assumption in Fairport who was on the school's varsity cheerleading squad with four of the five 2007 Fairport High graduates who died in a June 26 car crash. Earlier in the year a student died of cancer; last summer a student drowned. The school community received another blow when 2007 Fairport graduate David Andersen, a student at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, was found dead in his dormitory room late Sept. 6. As of Sept. 10, no details had been released about the cause of Andersen's death. "We know this tragedy will once again shake all of us in Fairport and in particular of course David's family and his friends and former classmates," wrote Fairport High principal Dave Paddock in a Sept. 7 e-mail to students and parents. "The love that got us through this summer must once again get us and our young people through yet another tragic loss," he added.

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