PARSONS ? Days after three southeast Kansas high school students and their Spanish teacher drowned in Costa Rica, classmate Kellie Allen stood on stage Friday doing all she could to commemorate their lives.

The four victims were on a school trip last weekend when they were swept out to sea. Earlier this week, rescue crews pulled the bodies of the youths from Labette County High School out of Pacific waters near the town of Parrita, about 180 miles south of the Costa Rican capital of San Jose. Spanish teacher Brett Carlson’s body was recovered Friday.

“By Spanish III, Mr. Carlson joked he had the cream of the crop,” Allen said. “But I don’t think he realized we were there because we wanted to be with him.”

Allen and seven other Labette County High School youths survived. They paid a final homage to their classmates by organizing the Friday evening memorial service whose attendees nearly filled a 1,600-seat auditorium in this wheat-growing town.

Students dabbed at their eyes as photos of their classmates – Jessica Pierce and Andrew Harpstrite, both 17, and 18-year-old Danielle Tongier, who had graduated – played back at them from a slide show on stage. One boy covered his face with a baseball cap as a soundtrack of a country song played in the background.

Their 26-year-old teacher, popular at the high school, apparently jumped in to help when he saw his students were in trouble while swimming off Palo Seco beach. He is said to have rescued at least two other students.

“It’s just devastating,” said Labette County schools Supt. Dennis Wilson earlier in the day. “People just can’t believe it. Even people who don’t know any of these children or know this teacher, they feel connected just because of the magnitude of the tragedy.”

Those who attended the memorial service brought written memories or cards for the students and teacher that will be compiled into a book for their families.

Carlson was leading 11 students on an educational tour when the weather changed June 10 and strong waters began pulling them out to sea.

It happened on a stretch of Costa Rican shore notorious for its dangerous currents, where at least four other people already had died this year. Luis Hidalgo, president of Costa Rica’s National Association of Lifeguards, said the area is popular with tourists, but no lifeguards or warning signs let swimmers know of possible dangers.

Still, other students on the trip told Wilson they were warned by a guide that the waters were dangerous.

The nearest Coast Guard ship was eight hours away. Other boats, a plane, a helicopter and shore patrols eventually joined the search effort.

Principal Greg Cartwright said this was the second tragedy at the school this academic year. Haley Hilderbrand, 17, was killed Aug. 18, 2005, while she was posing for senior pictures with a Siberian tiger at the Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary near Mound Valley.

“It’s been a hard week, and now we have four funerals to go to,” Cartwright said after the ceremony. “It hurts more than anything when these kids pass on because we don’t get to see who they will become.”

After the ceremony, hundreds of multicolor balloons were released.

Seventeen-year-old Katie Farrell said she hoped the memorial would help ease the community’s grief.

“What a lot of us did was try to get it out of our systems earlier this week so we could be strong for all the families,” Farrell said. “We tried to remember the happy times because we know that’s what they would have wanted.”