On Saturday, friends and family gathered in the Victorian gardens of Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs -- where, fittingly enough, Whitney had her first summer job. There Whitney's parents, David and Clelia Hendrickson, and her siblings, Wesley and Marina, unveiled a bronze by Green Mountain Falls sculptor Scott Stearman, who had sought out the family and offered to do the piece after hearing of the girl's death.
"I didn't know them," Stearman told the crowd. "But as a member of the community, my heart broke for them. It was frustrating, because I wanted to help but I didn't know how."
Drawing on photos of Whitney and modeling by her sister, Stearman caught his subject in a characteristic pose, in flight -- she and her friends often snapped pictures of each other leaping in the air. The work is mounted on marble from Marble, Colorado, and will be a permanent addition to the remembrance gardens at Miramont -- a perfect setting for a tribute to a spirit that reveled in sunshine and blue skies and towering mountains.
See photos below. For more on Whitney and her parents, whom I've known since my college days, go here and here.
More from our News archive: "On a dark day, celebrating a good life."