Students Killed in Crash Mourned

Nearly 1,000 friends and family members attended a joint funeral Wednesday for two popular Westlake High School students killed in a car crash three days after Christmas.

Jordan Alexander Bass and Kenneth Marshall Glass, both 16, were remembered as good students and good friends, with Bass an aspiring musician and Glass an athlete who dreamed of studying business or engineering.

The close friendships the two youths and their families enjoyed with many of those gathered for the service at Calvary Community Church in Westlake Village was much in evidence.

The Rev. Craig Beeker left the altar and walked among a large contingent of Westlake High students, teachers and coaches as John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy” began to play from speakers overhead.

The two students were killed Friday when a car driven by Glass careened out of control and hit a brick wall on Westlake Boulevard near Hillcrest Drive.

Two others in the car, Westlake High students Joshua Kuai and Jenae Chu, both 16, survived the crash. Kuai attended Wednesday’s service.

“They were my best friends and I feel really bad about what happened,” said Kuai, who was wearing a thickly padded neck brace. “I feel like I got off easy.”

Glass was a member of the basketball and volleyball teams at the school and had hopes of studying engineering or business at Columbia University after graduation in 2003.

Bass was a rock guitarist who performed in a garage band called Trase. He was also a golfer with plans to play on the UCLA team.

But the two were much more than good students who passed their spare time as a jock and a guitar player, according to those who knew them best.

During eulogies that lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours, friends and relatives of the two teens described the little things that were shaping the two boys into young men.

Bass’ mother, Cheryl, spoke directly to Kuai, seated in the front row. “Jenae and Joshua, we know God has a plan for you because you survived this,” she said.

Hung high above the altar were pictures of the two friends.

Several classmates read poems seeking reasons for the two deaths. Beeker, the pastor at Westlake Lutheran Church, cautioned against asking questions “that have no answers.”

Members of the Westlake High basketball team promised to dedicate the rest of the season in the memory of Glass.

Craig Glass said his son had the temperament of someone who would never give up.

“He wanted to be the leader, to control a company one day,” Craig Glass said. “But bad luck and bad judgment got in the way.”