Rick Gunn/Nevada Appeal Matt and Lynette Putzer receive a conciliatory hug from a friend upon arriving at their 10-year-old son's memorial service at Carson Middle School. Hundreds of people attended the service for Brandon Matthew Putzer on Saturday.
The faint church bells tolled four. Silently, hand in hand, Brandon Putzer's family walked inside.
Hundreds of mourning community members packed into the Carson Middle School gymnasium Saturday afternoon to celebrate the life of 10-year-old Brandon Matthew Putzer.
The middle school gymnasium is exactly where the fifth-grade Bordewich-Bray student would want to have been, said those who knew him.
Classmates remembered him as a kid who liked to make others laugh, a storyteller and a trivia buff.
Brandon was a member of the Bordewich-Bray American Heart Association Jump Rope Team, the Math Club, the Chess Club and a Friend of the Library.
His teachers remembered him as creative, studious and "action-packed."
Bordewich-Bray Principal, Susan Keema, stifled tears while trying to sum up the kind of kid Brandon was.
"He'll be forever in our hearts," she said.
Even Sheriff Kenny Furlong had trouble finding the right voice.
"We will stand by you," he promised Brandon's family.
Brandon came from a law-enforcement family: His father, Matthew, is a 16-year veteran of the Carson City Sheriff's Department and grandfather, Randy Putzer, is a retired sergeant.
His mother, Lynette, works for the school district.
Heavenly eulogies were performed by the Honor Choir and the Red Hot Bell Peppers handbell choir. Both were groups that Brandon looked forward to joining.
Brandon was born March 20, 1994, in Carson City. He died March 1, 2005, at Carson-Tahoe Hospital after an accidental hanging at his home in Dayton.
Among his survivors in addition to his parents, of Dayton, are maternal grandparents, Bonnie and Woody Woodward of Fernley; paternal grandparents, Randy and Nancy Putzer of Carson City; great-grandmothers Virginia Casilla of Santee, Calif., and Caryol Del Vecchio of Carson City; sister, Ashley Putzer; aunts Kristin Rupert of Carson City and Ginny Collier of Santee; and uncles Brian Putzer of Carson City and Gene Chesney of Holtville, Calif.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Brandon Putzer Memorial, Greater Nevada Credit Union Account No. 841899.