Truck accident victim helped rehab Phi Kappa Psi house

His family will hold a memorial service for Jack Price on Friday in Portland.

Another service - just as solemn - will be held for Price in Corvallis. It will be in the kitchen.

His kitchen.

It was not his personal kitchen, but for the brothers of Oregon State University's Phi Kappi Psi fraternity, it definitely belonged to him. He donated his time and labor to giving the fraternity a thoroughly renovated kitchen area.

The room will be dedicated to him.

"We haven't set a date for a dedication ceremony," said Phi Kappa Psi President Christopher Gerritz. "We're still trying to cope."

Price, 43, died Tuesday afternoon. The Beaverton resident was working underneath a stalled truck, reaching into the engine compartment, when the truck suddenly restarted and lurched forward. He was crushed.

The accident was at the corner of Northwest 14th Street and Northwest Van Buren Avenue near the fraternity house where he spent the summer renovating the kitchen. "A couple of the brothers saw it and are pretty shaken up by it," Gerritz said. "They didn't know what had happened, didn't know it was him."

As president of the fraternity, Gerritz feels an obligation to help his brothers deal with the loss. Unfortunately, he said, he has experience. Air Force ROTC student Ben Gerling died unexpectedly in May. Gerritz and the fraternity's six other Air Force ROTC students still mourn that loss.

Gerritz said he also lost buddies while on active duty with the Air Force in Kuwait.

He's been operating as an unofficial liaison between Price's family and the fraternity as well as working with university officials to make sure students get any counseling they might need. "The university has been great," he said.

Price was more than the guy working on the kitchen, Gerritz said. As an older man, the 1985 OSU graduate and Phi Kappi Psi alumnus was a role model. "Basically, he was our house dad," Gerritz said.

As a tree farmer in the Portland area, Price found himself with plenty of spare time in the summer months. He spent four to five days a week volunteering his time to his old fraternity. In addition to his volunteer efforts, he had served on the fraternity's alumni board of advisers for 10 years.

"He was really involved and really dedicated to the fraternity," Gerritz said.

He had been working on the kitchen project for two months. His unpaid time was the only way the fraternity could afford a new kitchen. Without him, it looked like the project would stall. However, Phi Kappa Psi brothers at the University of Missouri already have stepped forward and offered to pay for a new contractor.

The sudden death of a friend is a lot to absorb for young men in their late teens and early 20s. For some, Gerritz said, it is their first dose of life's harshest reality.

"Life is not supposed to be like that," Gerritz said. "But it happens. It happens."