Memorial held for Yale student

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- About 500 people gathered Sunday at Yale's Battell Chapel for the first memorial service for the four students killed in a highway accident that also injured five other students.

The service was held for Sean Fenton, a 20-year-old junior and computer science major from Newport Beach, Calif., who was remembered as an athlete and computer whiz with a gregarious personality.

"We can find strength in the weakness of each others' arms," said Yale Chaplain Frederick Streets.

Fenton was driving eight other members or pledges of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity from an event in New York early Friday when their SUV struck a tractor-trailer rig that had jackknifed on snowy Interstate 95 in Fairfield.

Fenton often was the designated driver, the one who would "help everyone out," roommate Walter Badgett said Saturday.

Services are scheduled later in the week for sophomore Kyle Burnat, 19, of Atlanta, and sophomore Andrew Dwyer, 19, of Hobe Sound, Fla., who also died in the wreck, and sophomore Nicholas G. Grass, 19, of Holyoke, Mass., who died Saturday at a Bridgeport hospital.

Two of the injured students remained in critical condition Sunday.

Fenton's father, Robert, said Yale was the only school his son wanted to attend.

"It was his home away from home, and his friends were his life," Robert Fenton said.

State Police Sgt. J. Paul Vance said it would be several weeks before the investigation of the accident is completed.