Friday’s kickoff of the annual “Make Waves” Movie Competition, hosted by the native chapter of the Surfrider Basis, was slated to be the end result of months of planning by 21-year-old Cal Poly San Luis Obispo junior Kenneth Taylor.
The mechanical engineering scholar from Richland, Wash. was generally known as a lot for his advocacy for the outside as he was for his enjoyment of it. Taylor was a founding member of the varsity’s Alpine Membership and served as a visit chief for the campus’ Poly Escapes program, which gives trip-planning companies and outside coaching for college kids.
He cherished snow sports activities and mountaineering, mates stated, up till the top.
College officers despatched a campus-wide electronic mail Monday morning confirming that Taylor died Saturday “after an accident throughout a visit to Huge Sur.”
“The college is in contact with Kenneth’s household and is extending its full assist to them and his mates,” Cal Poly San Luis Obispo College President Jeffrey D. Armstrong wrote within the electronic mail. “Our ideas are with them as they grieve their loss.”
Kenneth Taylor, proper, was generally known as one half of “Kenneth squared,” a nickname he shared with good friend and fellow Cal Poly SLO scholar Kenneth Bevens, left.
(Courtesy of Kenneth Bevens)
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Division requested help to test on an overdue hiker at Salmon Creek Falls and the Pacific Coast Freeway, based on a San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s spokesperson.
San Luis Obispo County deputies responded and located a deceased hiker Saturday night on the base of a 12-story waterfall within the water, based on county officers. The demise was not deemed suspicious.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Division, which is accountable for the investigation, didn’t reply to calls or an electronic mail requesting extra info.
The demise left one in every of Taylor’s greatest mates, Kenneth Bevens, in disbelief.
“What stood out to me about Kenneth was how constructive and passionate he was,” Bevens stated. “In case you wanted assist with images, with security instruction, mountaineering suggestions or no matter, he at all times helped.”
Bevens met his outside comrade and namesake in October 2022 at a two-day occasion hosted by Poly Escapes, which was providing CPR coaching and wilderness certification, he stated.
They known as one another “the opposite Kenneth” and shared an age, a ardour for the outside and have been photographers. They have been identified round campus and at college occasions as “Kenneth squared.”
Bevens, a Camarillo native, stated he had identified a number of Kenneths all through his life, although all of them most well-liked to be known as Kenny or Ken. Taylor was the primary particular person he knew, like him, to make use of his full first title.
“We have been typically confused for one another as a result of we had so most of the similar hobbies and mates,” Bevens stated. “There was no one like Kenneth, although.”
Bevens stated Taylor was extra of a panorama photographer and known as himself a portrait shooter.
“I used to be going to show Kenneth how one can print so we may promote our photographs on the movie competition,” Bevens stated. “We simply had so many plans and I can’t consider he’s gone.”
Bevens stated he was strolling by means of a hallway on Monday when a mutual good friend knowledgeable a professor that “Kenneth” had fallen to his demise in Huge Sur.
“Her eyes widened and she or he requested, ‘Oh my God, which one?’” Bevens stated. “I felt like a ghost in a means, as a result of I used to be at all times the opposite one, the opposite Kenneth. Now I’m not.”
