Garrett Bardsley School built in Ecuador

SPANISH FORK — As time passes, children attending classes at the Garrett Bardsley Memorial School in Puca Cruz, Ecuador, may not know the whole story of the lost American boy whose name is in front of the school.

Chances are they won't really know why the fair-haired young boy with braces on his teeth is the reason they even have a large school — but they'll look at a picture of his face painted on the library wall and sit in desks painted sky blue, his favorite color.

But like a tale passed down from generation to generation, parents will tell their children about the days the people in Puca Cruz helped build the school, hauling rocks and pushing concrete-filled wheelbarrows, splitting orange-colored tile and saving the bits for the walkway.

They will talk about the 42 Americans who came with backpacks, school supplies and money. And they will say the Americans pitched tents and slept on the ground and danced in the rain when the storms stopped them from working on the school.

The school was built by the Bardsley family and their friends in memory of a son and friend who became lost in the High Uintas in August. He has not been found and is presumed dead.

Kevin Bardsley, Garrett's father, said he's content knowing that his loss has in some ways blessed the lives of others.

"I would be lying if I told you it was easy to be (in Ecuador) without Garrett because it wasn't," Kevin Bardsley said. "But I've learned that out of dark clouds, rainbows are created. Losing Garrett was the dark cloud. This is the rainbow."

Kevin and Heidi Bardsley have set up a memorial fund in their son's name and plan to build a number of schools with the money they've received from both friends and strangers who have been touched by the story of Garrett's disappearance.

The school in Puca Cruz, which replaces a one-room school for 60 children, is just the first, Kevin Bardsley said.

On Wednesday, he and his family returned to Spanish Fork Middle School — where Garrett would have attended — to show the student body how they spent the money raised for the school's construction.

Students at the school set a goal to raise $7,000 and gather 600 backpacks. They ended up sending 1,100 backpacks and more than $22,000 to the tiny village in the Andes Mountains the Bardsley family had visited when Garrett was alive.