Hundreds Mourn for Crash Victim : Funeral: Teen-ager who died in an accident on his birthday is buried with a new beeper, a prized possession.

While 600 mourning family members, friends and fellow students from Crescenta Valley High School looked on, 15-year-old Sevag (Steve) Cholakian was buried Friday with a favorite possession, a beeper.

The beeper that Sevag received a few days before his death as a birthday present was lost in the accident that killed him and his friend David Gevorkyan, 14, on Monday when the car they were riding in hurtled 500 feet down an embankment in the Angeles National Forest. But a new one was placed inside his casket to symbolize the boy’s lasting bond with his loved ones.

“I told him, ‘Take this beeper, and anytime we think of you or call you, it will beep,’ ” said Stepan Kabadian, chairman of St. Mary’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Glendale, where an emotional memorial service was held Friday morning.

Students clad in black--some wearing specially made T-shirts bearing the words “in memory of David, Sevag”--filled the church auditorium, joined by about a dozen uniformed members of the high school’s Air Force ROTC program, to which both boys belonged.

Although still distraught over his loss, many of Sevag’s friends said they would not forget the boy who wore a constant smile.

“He always kept me going and always helped me press on through many hardships,” recalled Colin Russell, who said he and Sevag had been best friends for 10 years. The two boys had planned to join the U.S. Air Force after college and later forge careers in music, he said.

“He was going to learn how to play the guitar. He had a guitar, but he never got a chance to learn how to play it,” Colin said.

Sevag, David and three other students--Malineh Martussian, 19, of Glendale, Suzan Guluzian, 15, of La Canada, and Polek Aladadyan, 14, of La Crescenta--decided to skip school Monday to celebrate both Sevag’s 15th birthday, which was Monday, and Suzan’s 16th birthday, which was Tuesday.

The group drove up the Angeles Crest Highway in Martussian’s car to see the snow in the San Gabriel Mountains. But about 11 a.m., as they were heading back home, the car drifted onto the dirt shoulder, skidded back across the highway, struck a cement lip alongside the pavement and rolled over it, plunging down the hillside near the Mt. Wilson turnoff road, said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Ralph Elvira.

“It appears that they were traveling about 45 or 46 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone, so they were not driving at an unsafe speed. She (Martussian) lost control, and she may have either panicked or was just not able to regain control of the car,” Elvira said. CHP officials do not believe drugs or alcohol contributed to the accident, he said.

Contrary to initial reports of the accident, Sevag was not ejected from the car but was found in the vehicle’s front seat, still wearing his seat belt. David was thrown from the vehicle and found about 70 feet from the car, Elvira said.

The wreckage was far from the road and unnoticeable to passing cars, and the three injured girls were rescued only after Polek spent four hours climbing the hill--despite a broken pelvis--and flagged down a motorist who called for help.

On Friday, friends said Martussian’s family was in constant vigil at her bedside at County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles, where she has been unconscious since the accident. Both Suzan, who was still hospitalized at County-USC, and Polek, who was recovering at home, were said to be improving.

Crescenta Valley High School Principal Ken Biermann said some students have begun a petition drive to urge the CHP to install guard rails at hairpin curves along the mountain highway.

“It’s difficult when you lose any student, but these two boys were extremely well liked,” Biermann said. “The students are trying to turn this loss into something positive and constructive.”

Alice Petrossian, intercultural coordinator for the school district and a friend of both the Cholakian and Gevorkyan families, said both boys were “basically clean-cut kids” who made “a naive, foolish mistake.”

“Hopefully this will be a lesson to their friends. Kids need to learn that life is precious, and every decision they make affects the rest of their lives,” Petrossian said.

Memorial services and burial for David are scheduled Monday at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in the Hollywood Hills.