Friends, family and students gathered to commemorate the life of Texas State student Ethan Dalton on Thursday, Sept. 5 outside LBJ Student Center.

Ethan, who was a senior, died and was an active member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. In his honor, his fraternity brothers organized the memorial.

During the service, Ethan’s family and friends from both college and childhood shared speeches, reflecting on the impact he had on their lives.

Pi Kappa Alpha’s President Jose Villarreal said Ethan was a 4.0 GPA student who held a scholarship within the fraternity for years.  

“With his family we are going to launch the Ethan Dalton Zeta Theta Scholarship to give back to others who are just as smart as him,” Villarreal said.  

His friends spoke about memories they shared that exemplified the person Ethan was. They described him as smart, happy and one of a kind – attributes Ethan’s dad Dennis Dalton was proud to hear associated with his son. 

“I can’t tell you how dark it is to lose your only son,” Dennis said. “Then I see there’s little points of light everywhere people calling me, naming a scholarship after him, telling me they’re giving him his degree.”

Dennis said he is grateful he could see how much Ethan meant to the people he surrounded himself with – something his family didn’t know because Ethan had a hard time making friends when he was younger, his sister Elise Dalton said. 

“I’m not here to tell you how great a person Ethan is, I’m here because you told me how great a person Ethan is and that’s the life our family will carry with us, knowing that so many people loved him,” Dennis said. 

The memorial brought teary-eyed loved ones together and ended with the audience singing along to Freestyle by Lil Baby because Ethan was always rapping and the type of person to “go out with a bang,” his girlfriend Reagan Billington said. 

Pi Kappa Alpha put together a GoFundMe for the Ethan Dalton Zeta Theta Scholarship fund.