McKeesport Catholic school community gathers to mourn death of 15-year-old student

Small but meaningful details stole the spotlight as the Serra Catholic High School community gathered on a football field Thursday night to mourn one of their own.

• Fingers gently cupped around hand-held candles, their orange, sometimes-flickering glow cast defiantly against the dark-blue cover of dusk.

• The way the crowd responded in unison — “Praise be to God!” — after a reading from the biblical Book of Isaiah.

• The Rev. Adam Potter, the school’s chaplain, kneeling in front of an altar covered with white cloth and colored candles, his shoulders framed by portraits of the Virgin Mary and the young Dravosburg girl whose life ended this week.

“Lord, where were you? Where were you?” said Potter, after sharing the biblical story of Jesus resurrecting Lazarus. “At moments of great pain and sorrow, we too are free to ask the Lord questions … and open up our heart to him.

“He was there,” Potter added. “Nothing happened without his permission.”

Hundreds of families and students gathered at the high school in McKeesport on Thursday to celebrate the life and mourn the death of Samantha Lee Kalkbrenner, 15, the Serra Catholic sophomore killed in her hometown a day earlier while being driven to school.

Details of Kalkbrenner’s life peppered the one-hour, 15-minute service, which ended after dusk had darkened the sky. But, above all, those leading the vigil encouraged mourners to find strength — and, ultimately, deeper meaning — in their Catholic faith.

“We gather this evening in sorrow, but in faith,” Serra Catholic Principal Robert Childs said at the vigil’s onset. “We’re more than a community. We’re more than a family. We are a body. We are the body of Christ.

“We will always be close to Sam,” he added, “if we are close to Jesus.”

School officials appeared to yield to religious leaders.

Timothy Chirdon, the school’s president, started a GoFundMe page for Kalkbrenner on Thursday. Within hours — by the time the vigil had ended — 354 donations had brought in more than $19,000 of a $25,000 goal.

But, on Thursday, Chirdon declined to talk with reporters. The school would not be releasing a statement.

The media scrum was separated entirely from the vigil, with TV cameras ordered to perch on a hill hundreds of yards from the vigil — behind a press box, a thick overgrowth of bushes and trees, a rusted chain-link fence and even barbed wire.

A number of Serra Catholic High School students, several of them weeping heavily, memorialized Kalkbrenner — though their words didn’t seem to make it to families in the bleachers or to the media even farther beyond them.

What was audible, however, spoke volumes.

Kalkbrenner — “Sam” to many of her friends — was the heart of her cheerleading squad and the Class of 2026, one girl said. She had a smile that lit up a room and an infectious laugh to match.

“She was one of the kindest people I’d ever met,” said one student, the bluish light from her cell phone struggling against the night to light up part of her face. “She brought so much joy … to those around her.”

“Nobody could ever match her energy,” a second girl said.

“A piece of my heart has broken,” added another. “I love you so much, Sam!”

The candles held in families’ and friends’ hands — hundreds of them, scattered around the seats like fireflies — began to die out as Kalkbrenner’s classmates shared their stories. The football field’s lights eventually kicked on, illuminating the vigil, and its half-moon arc of seats set near the field’s 50-yard line.

Before retreating to the school’s cafeteria to comfort one another, classmates, friends and neighbors sang one last verse of “Ave Maria.”