Tearful Farewell to a Friend : Funeral: Popular prep athlete killed in sudden knife attack is buried in traditional Buddhist ceremony attended by hundreds of classmates.

About 600 people, most of them classmates, attended a traditional Buddhist funeral Saturday for Moukda Chounlamany, a popular high school football star who was stabbed to death Tuesday in a sudden attack on a Garden Grove street. Dressed in customary orange robes that hung off one shoulder, four monks and six mourners-- all with shaved heads--began the ceremony at Mount Olive Mortuary and Memorial Park with a 15-minute rhythmic chant designed to ease Moukda’s transition to heaven.

The 18-year-old Stanton student was eulogized in Lao, his native tongue, as the mourners listened quietly, some with their hands clasped together in a gesture of prayer. Others bowed their heads as they wept.

“He was so popular and he got along with everybody,” said Eddie Duran, a 19-year-old senior and Chounlamany’s best friend for the past four years. The two became friends after Chounlamany introduced himself as they waited in line for physical examinations needed to play freshman football.

“He just patted me on the back and introduced himself. He invited me over to have dinner with his family that night,” Duran said. “After some time, we became like brothers.”

Many of Chounlamany’s Rancho Alamitos High School football teammates sat motionless during the 90-minute ceremony, gazing toward the open casket containing the body of the 5-foot-6-inch, 150-pound dynamo who had led them to a sectional championship last December.

After relatives, classmates, teachers and friends viewed Chounlamany for the last time, covering him with red and pink roses, a rope measuring about half the distance of a football field was tied to the closed casket.

It was held taut by the monks, who stood outside the church. Chounlamany’s family and friends then grasped the rope and pulled the casket outside, a Buddhist tradition that symbolizes the beginning of the dead youth’s journey to heaven.

Outside, as a woman showered mourners with foil-wrapped coins--a good luck gesture--the prevailing question was “How could this happen to such a nice kid?”

Only hours before he was to become the victim of the sudden assault, Chounlamany learned that he and Duran had just been hired for part-time jobs as telemarketers by a Costa Mesa mortgage company, Duran said.

That evening, they went to a local restaurant to celebrate. They talked about their futures. They discussed how they might attend a local community college and room together.

Fourteen-year-old Gregory Allen Callison has been charged with murder in connection with Chounlamany’s death. The youth, who turned himself in to police hours after the 9 p.m. attack, will be tried as a juvenile. He is being held in Orange County Juvenile Hall and is scheduled to appear in Juvenile Court on Tuesday.

Chounlamany’s brother, Tootoo, has said the attack stemmed from a misunderstanding over a dune buggy that Callison may have believed Tootoo was trying to steal.

Moukda Chounlamany’s brother-in-law, Duong Nguyen, was one of about half a dozen mourners younger than Chounlamany who shaved their heads as a sign of respect.

“He was always hyper and had his own ways of doing things. But he would ask me for advice sometimes,” Nguyen said. “He liked to do impersonations. He was really good at doing Jean-Claude Van Damme.”

Chounlamany’s sister, Sithara, a 16-year-old junior, sat teary-eyed in the back seat of Nguyen’s car after the funeral and attempted to lighten things up.

“He loved to yell at me,” she said in a soft voice, with a small smile.

“We were always together,” Duran remembered. “I stayed at his house every weekend. He was a very trustworthy person, always a leader.”