Arcadia Family, Friends Mourn a ‘Happy Kid’

Seventeen-year-old Joseph Dolan liked to push himself. On Wednesday, the last day of summer before his last year of high school, he pushed too far.

After hiking most of the day in the Angeles National Forest, Joseph and a friend spent several hours diving from rocks into the San Gabriel River. Repeatedly leaping from as high as 60 feet, Joseph died after apparently hitting his head on the river floor during a relatively low jump of between 15 and 20 feet.

Family and friends of the Arcadia teen-ager described him as a free spirit and everybody’s friend. “He was just a happy kid,” said his father, James Dolan.

Dolan said his son, the youngest of three brothers, was a strong athlete who shyed away from organized sports, choosing instead activities he could do alone or with a few friends, such as skiing and hiking.

Several of those friends gathered Thursday after the first day of school at Arcadia High School to comfort one another.

Joseph was a fan of the Rolling Stones and the band Dread Zeppelin, they said.

“He was a crazy guy, nutty,” said Scott Seine, 17. “He liked to push things to the limit.”

Steven Minnillo, 17, was with Joseph when he died. The pair had spent the previous night at Magic Mountain and were enjoying the end of summer by swimming and diving in the river, Steven said.

“Everyone wanted to know Joe,” he said. “He was always out to have a good time.”

Jim Calderhead, a ceramics instructor at Arcadia High, said Joseph was friendly and a good student. “I (taught) his brothers too. I had his whole family. I liked him,” Calderhead said.

Ashley Waterhouse, 16, said Joseph will be sorely missed by the friends he entered high school with three years ago and would have graduated with next June.

“When everyone else was bummed out and bored, he’d always be having fun,” she said. “He was a good friend.”