Missing student leaves 15-year legacy

After all the voices that have been heard, it's the silent tribute that perhaps says the most.

On Wednesday, Jan. 24, the residents of St. Joseph's College hung their hockey jerseys out the college's north-facing windows in memory of Dean Mortensen, a student who played on the St. Joseph's Rangers intramural hockey team and disappeared 15 years ago.

In January 1992 Mortensen, who was in his first year of science studies at the U of A, went to The Ship, a popular pub in Lister Hall, with several other St. Joe's residents. Shortly after midnight, he started heading back to the college with a couple of friends. When they got about as far as the Butterdome, Mortensen said he'd forgotten something at the pub, so he turned back to Lister Hall on his own.

Mortensen has not been seen or heard from since.

"It's tricky to vanish," said Father Timothy Scott, president of St. Joseph's College. "Especially in the dead of winter, it's pretty hard to make yourself disappear, if that's what this was. So you suspect foul play."

The next morning, Mortensen's good friend Stephen Beland - who also lived at St. Joe's - knocked on Mortensen's door on his way to an early class they shared.

"I didn't hear him but thought maybe he'd slept in," Beland said. "Then he missed his second and third class too, so when I got back to the college around 1 p.m. I forced his door open because I was worried."

Beland and Mortensen grew up and played sports together in Grande Cache, a small community 420 kms northwest of Edmonton. So, when Beland noticed Mortensen's bed had not been slept in, he "flipped out," he said. "It was just not like him to not be home."

Mortensen was a quiet guy and not necessarily well known in the college, but when Beland told other residents he was worried, "they all listened. When I said it was strange that Dean wasn't back, they all started searching. They all cared. Every single one of them helped look. It's a tight family."

To draw attention to the situation and the need to keep searching, the residents of St. Joe's hung their Rangers hockey jerseys out their windows. Eventually, though the searches and police investigations didn't lead to Mortensen, hanging the jerseys became a tradition of remembrance. Current residents might have been toddlers when Mortensen was a student at the U of A, but all St. Joe's residents embrace the yearly opportunity to remember him.

"The sense is that we are remembering Dean, and we use this event to celebrate the strength of our community," said Robert Routledge, director of residence at the college. "We recognize how challenging it would be to suddenly and unexpectedly lose a family member, and we show respect for the group of Rangers that had to go through this."

Residents attended noon-hour mass at the college Wednesday, wearing blue lapel ribbons as another sign of remembrance. Each year the Dean Mortensen Scholarship is awarded to a student who is active in intramurals, has leadership skills, and contributes to a safer campus.