North Cedar students cope with death of classmate

STANWOOD - Basketball wasn't Jayce Droll's game, but that's how a lot of people remember him.

“He loved working the crowd, he led cheers,” said North Cedar Schools Superintendent John Dayton. “Jayce loved the school, and and he loved the kids in it. He will be missed.”

Droll, 17, of Stanwood, a junior at North Cedar High School in Stanwood, was killed Friday night while riding an all-terrain vehicle near Clarence in Cedar County. Two others, also North Cedar juniors, were injured.

Sheriff Warren Wethington said Droll was riding north on Newton Avenue, a gravel road about two miles southwest of Clarence, about 7:15 p.m. when he lost control of his three-wheel ATV and was thrown from it.

Aaron Lawrence, 16, of Mechanicsville, was following Droll on a four-wheeled ATV and lost control as he tried to avoid the initial accident, Wethington said. Lawrence and passenger Sadie Holst, 17, of Lowden, were thrown from his machine.

Droll and Lawrence were airlifted from the scene to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where Lawrence remains hospitalized according to Wethington.

Holst was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids and has since been released, Wethington said.

Counselors were on hand at North Cedar over the weekend and will be in the school through Thursday, the day after Droll's funeral, Dayton said.

“They're grieving,” Dayton said of Droll's approximately 230 classmates. “When you lose someone who's such a wonderful kid…everyone just loved Jayce.”

Droll played football, wrestled, and ran on North Cedar's track team and always turned out to support other sports, Dayton said. When North Cedar won the Sportsmanship Award at last month's boys' basketball tournament in Des Moines, “it was his effort,” Dayton said.