Friends Recall Boy’s Zest for Life : Death: Thomas Sunoo, 16, had varied interests. At a shaken and saddened University High in Irvine, his passing prompts recollections of a busy lifestyle and of his potential.

Thomas Sunoo loved to draw and, even though he had more than a year to go before graduation, he aspired to attend the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia on his way to becoming a professional animator.

Before then, though, there were to be many high school days left at University High in Irvine, where Sunoo was a junior.

There was piano to learn and meetings of the Ethnic Awareness club on campus to attend. There were coffeehouses to visit, movies to see and bookstores to browse.

On Thursday, his fellow students would remember it all in bittersweet fashion, the day after Sunoo, 16, collapsed on the high school gym floor and died of an apparent heart attack during physical education class. The exact cause of his death is still under investigation.

The somber announcement of Sunoo’s death came over the loudspeaker at the beginning of the school day, followed by an invitation for students to gather in the campus theater to mourn. About 125 students showed up, sharing six boxes of tissues.

“Those kids were hurting,” said Assistant Principal Sue Buttell. “I looked out at the sea of faces and they wanted me to tell them it wasn’t true.”

Counselors made themselves available to students in the school’s college and career center, and school psychologist Mark Bockstahler) visited all of Sunoo’s classes to offer support Thursday, Buttell said.

The school was shaken. One incredulous student asked Buttell to call the hospital where Sunoo was pronounced dead, just once more to make certain some mistake hadn’t been made.

Sunoo’s school medical records had shown no sign of health problems. And the coroner’s office said an autopsy performed Thursday did not reveal the cause of death. When he collapsed face-down while playing basketball, teachers applied cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Paramedics said Sunoo appeared to be in full cardiac arrest. Sunoo died at Irvine Medical Center.

“We’re all saddened by the loss of a young person with talent and potential,” Buttell said. “These tragedies bring us together and help us appreciate the value of family.”

Sunoo moved to Irvine from Los Angeles in September, 1992, with his parents, Brenda and Jan and brother, David, 19.

“Tommy really looked up to his brother. They were very close,” his mother said.

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Just two weeks ago, the Sunoos had a family reunion to celebrate Jan Sunoo’s 50th birthday. “He was just very upbeat” on that day, she said. “I miss him terribly.”

Sunoo kept his Los Angeles-area pals while making new ones in Irvine, his mother said. His interests ranged from religion to piano-playing to his real love, pencil drawing. He often entered his work in contests.

An abstract drawing he called “Unfocused” was included in a calendar he gave his mother for Christmas, she said.

On Thursday morning, two of Sunoo’s classmates visited his family to reminisce. They couldn’t help but shed some tears.

“I remember when he came (to Irvine)” said Hedi Kim, 17. “He was so cute when I saw him.”

Kim remembered having a crush on him when he first arrived at school but the two later became just good friends.

Sitting at the Sunoos’ dining room table, she wrote her recollections of him in a bound notebook for the parents while she wiped away tears.

He never drank, smoked, or used drugs, she said. “He was totally against it. I don’t think he did anything. He was so innocent.”

Tina Nam, 16, another close friend, said Sunoo was at first extremely quiet and reserved but when she got to know him better, Nam learned he was very generous.

In the past few months, she said, he had been exploring different churches.

As other family friends and students arrived to pay condolences, Kim and Nam departed to visit Jitters, a coffeehouse in an Irvine shopping center where Sunoo often spent free time. Nam said they often saw movies together.

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At the coffeehouse was Irene Ahn, 17, another close friend of Sunoo’s.

“He was always smiling and brightening up my day,” said Ahn, a senior who considered him her little brother.

She learned of his death Thursday morning.

“Someone told me, but I didn’t believe it,” she said. “Then I heard it over the loudspeaker, and I ran out of the classroom. I just miss him.”

Buttell said there would be moments of silence at the school’s next pep rally, and that students are planning to dedicate a page in their yearbook to his memory.

His funeral will be at 11 a.m. Monday at University United Methodist Church in Irvine.

Contributions can be sent to University High School, where the Sunoos are setting up an art scholarship fund with the school for an aspiring artist in the class of 1995, the year Thomas would have graduated.