A year has passed since a beloved Gonzaga College High School student was killed in a crash on the Capital Beltway, and members of the school community gathered on Friday to honor his memory.
Dominik Pettey, 17, died Nov. 1, 2014 after he went out with friends on Halloween and the car ran out of gas. The driver pulled over in Montgomery County and a Jeep Compass that veered off the roadway slammed into the car. Pettey was pronounced dead at the scene. Thousands of people attended a service for him at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Gonzaga's hockey team, on which Pettey played, celebrated the Potomac, Maryland teenager's life on Friday evening with a street festival and hockey game.
Our goal has been to remember Dom in the way he would want to and to celebrate him," team coach Bill Slater said.
Pettey's team number, 11, was hung in Fort Dupont Ice Rink in Southeast D.C., and the boy's parents spoke about a scholarship fund started in Dominik Pettey's memory to help underprivileged youth attend the Catholic all-boys school in Northwest D.C.
"He loved that school, he loved his Gonzaga brothers," Dominik Pettey's father, Patrick Pettey said as he and his wife spoke publicly for the first time.
As of Friday evening, $11,000 had been donated to the scholarship fund.
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"I'm just happy that with all the money that's being raised, several boys will be able to get a Gonzaga education," Magdalena Pettey, the late student's mother, said.
A fellow teammate of Dominik Petty's said he's thought of often.
"We really feel he's always present and he's always there to help us out and keep us moving, and we're doing it for him every day," Mackie Wheeler said.
The teen's father spoke about grappling with his son's death.
"You just have to say this is what God wanted and you have to accept it," Patrick Petty said. "Faith has a lot to do with it."
