This is another in the series of 20 profiles of The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2018.

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Last year, when a former childhood friend Sam Laib died in an auto accident, Austin Spafford recalled how fun and competitive it had been when they played street hockey.

“It was the first death to affect me personally,” Spafford, a Pine Creek High School senior recalls. “I struggled to believe his death was real, and hid my grief.”

Laib’s younger brother is a member of the marching band. So is Spafford, 18, who plays tuba and is known as a mentor for other students. “I noticed everyone was suffering and thought music would help.”

After talking to the faculty director, he helped organize a memorial event. Some band members with instruments in hand went to a park, rehearsed a piece and then walked to the Laib home where additional members were.

“I knocked on the door and told them how sorry we were and that we were there to extend our arms to them.”

The band members played “Amazing Grace.”

Many cried, including Spafford.

“I was profoundly changed by his death, and the outpouring of love and compassion and sense of finality,” Spafford says. “It changed my vision of why I am here and how important it is to be connected and help those struggling.”

This also came home to him when he was chosen to attend the Global Student Leadership Summit in the Netherlands where students worked on civil rights issues and he met a Syrian refugee named Molham. “I learned his tragic story. He had to escape Syria leaving his family behind to begin a new life in Amsterdam.”

They have kept in touch. “He inspires me to improve the world,” Spafford says.

Spafford has been a counselor at High Trails Outdoor Education Center, an outdoor camp for children. On one occasion, he dressed as a gold prospector and took the kids on a field trip, teaching about local mining history. “It makes learning fun. I see it as a way to give back and to help instill curiosity and independence in kids who haven’t been away from home.”

Spafford will attend the University of Colorado at Boulder and sees all those experiences as carrying over into his chosen major, mechanical engineering.

His passion for science and math can be translated into doing good in the world, he explains. “Innovation will grow our civilization and can make things better for everyone.”