In the early hours of Sunday morning, University student and Beta Theta Pi fraternity member Brian Reams was crossing Hilyard Street at East 15th Ave. A car, bystanders say a Cadillac, plowed into him and sped off. Reams died at Sacred Heart Medical Center early Monday.
More than 600 people gathered in McArthur Court last night to celebrate Reams’ memory. They came to laugh and share stories about his life. They came to be together and to cry and to begin to cope with the dull and terrible pain of grief.
A priest led the audience in prayer. The president of his fraternity spoke. A University administrator spoke. His friends spoke. His sister spoke, and so did his mother and so did his father.
“Brian was your friend,” his father, Joe Reams said to the crowd.
He paused. It was a long pause, and in it, the only thing audible was the sound of tears.
“But he was our rock. From the very beginning, he was our rock.”
“I’m not sure how we’re gonna move forward,” his father said, “but it’s gonna be because of Brian.”
“All of his organs were used,” his father said. “Somehow or another he keeps on impacting the lives of others.”
He thanked Beta Theta Pi, the University and Sacred Heart Medical Center, and then he addressed the crowd.
“You’ll never know how we feel,” he said. “Ever.”
But the family is not angry, he said.
“There’s a young man some place who drove that car,” his father said. “We know he’s going through hell right now. We know his family’s going through hell.”
He said that his son’s death was the result of choices. He asked the audience – especially the students – to think about the choices they make, about how fast they drive and about how much they drink, and try to make them better.
“Parents,” he said, “hug your kids tonight.”
He said his son didn’t call home much, but when he did he’d say “I love you, pops.”
“Nothing meant more to me,” his father said.
He turned his attention to Brian’s fraternity brothers.
“I’ve lost my only son,” he said. “You’re not my sons.”
He paused.
“But I kinda feel that way.”
He said Brian argued with his parents to be allowed to join a fraternity – they didn’t like the idea – but it ended up being the best thing he ever did.
“Brian had two homes,” said his father. “He was fortunate.”
Reams was five pounds when he was born and had to be kept in a little incubator, said Debbie Reams, his mother. In the incubator, Brian wore a little knit cap on his blonde head.
He learned to ride a two-wheel bike when he was three, his mother said. His older sister learned when she was eight. He used to ride in circles around her, laughing.
Another time, when he was about three or four, his mother was working in the garden of their home. While she was preoccupied, Brian wandered off down the street and went door to door asking his neighbors if they would pay him to do any chores.
She said Brian told them, “If you don’t have any chores, I’ll just take the money.”
“One of his first loves was money,” she said.
He was always dreaming up quick money-making schemes, she said.
He could get anything he wanted,” she said. “He could work his way into any situation.”
When the family spoke about him with each other, they said, “He’s gonna be president, or he’s gonna be in jail.”
But more than anything, his mother said, “He was probably my soul mate.”
“We knew each other without even talking,” she said.
His mother remembered Brian calling his sister Caroline from “a karaoke bar in town,” and singing “Sweet Caroline” to her.
For the past three years, Brian Reams and Brock Perko spent “every waking minute” together.
“Wherever he was, I was,” said Perko. “Our names were pretty much synonymous.”
They were roommates.
He said Reams really listened to people on the big issues and on the little ones because he cared and cared genuinely.
He shared a story about a time a young man pledging the fraternity missed a flight from Eugene to Portland and rushed into their room asking desperately for a ride.
Perko said that his initial reaction was to say no, but, “I look over at Reamer and he’s got this look on his face like it was almost a good thing.”
He paused here, and premised the end of the story with “we had this huge fetish for Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits,” and that the only franchise they knew of was about halfway to Portland.
“He looked at me and was like, ‘Well… we could get Popeye’s,’” Perko said.
When the audience had stopped laughing, Perko’s voice grew tight.
“He knew how to be a friend better than anyone else I ever met,” he said. “He was a friend.”
His former roommate Wesley Trout said that Reams was a proud man, stubborn and proud, a man who “stuck to his guns.”
Trout said Reams was proud of his religion, family, and friends, where he came from and “he was proud of himself, too.”
“He filled a void in my heart,” Trout said. “I love you, Brian. I hope you’re listening and I can’t wait to see you again.”
Former roommate Daniel Shuval said he’s spent hours watching CSI and South Park with Reams, and that Reams had an unnatural appetite for eggs. He’d buy a 50-pack at the grocery story every Sunday, Shuval said.
It was those little things that Shuval remembered about Reams.
He said they’d stay up late watching TV and Reams would wake him up in the morning so he wouldn’t miss his classes.
He said Reams was the perfect friend.
Former roommate Ryan Buckley said he met Reams in the residence halls when Reams threw a Frisbee down the hall and hit him in the eyebrow. It split open and Reams didn’t just see if Buckley was all right that day, but kept after him for weeks asking after his eyebrow.
Buckley said he knew immediately that they would become great friends and they did.
“This world would be a better place is there were more people like Brian,” Buckley said, “but that’s what made him special. There weren’t many people like him.”
Buckley then looked over Brian’s parents.
“If I’m a father someday,” he said, “and my kids can have half the character your son did, I’ll consider myself a successful parent.”
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Donations will be accepted to help build a new gym at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Pocatello, Idaho, where Reams attended elementary school and where his mother also teaches.
Donations can be sent to the Brian Reams Memorial Fund, 718 S. Second St., Pocatello, Idaho 83204.