On May 8, 2025, Inglemoor Class of 2024 alumnus Daniel Chu passed away. He was an active member of the Inglemoor Theater Company and Mock Trial club, and he served as the JV boys tennis captain in his senior year. Friends, teachers and family members described him as funny, spontaneous and — above all — caring. Messages and transcripts have been edited for privacy and profanity.

Christopher McQueen was Daniel’s senior year IB Global Politics teacher. 

McQueen: I knew Daniel. He was in my IB Global Politics class. I loved working with him. But he wasn’t necessarily easy. He had a very sharp intellect, and in many ways, he was a very good advocate, and he asked questions that that really challenged. Challenged, not in the way of knowledge or trying to catch the teacher, but challenge at being eager for a more complex explanation. I believe one of the topics he worked on were tensions and the South China Sea and the politics of Taiwan and mainland China and the Malacca Strait and everything about there and his thirst for knowledge just kept you on your toes, right? It was refreshing and it was enjoyable. And at other times, he was difficult and obstinate and demanding, which was okay too. Because you’re real that way. I’ve taught long enough to know that sometimes the student that is passive and accepting is not really paying attention or just shining you on. You can pretend to be engaged, or you can be engaged and looking for something because you want to grade, or you are trying to satisfy the pressures to talk in front of other people or not talk in front of other people. And what I really appreciated about working with Daniel is that he was real. And along with being real, there are flaws both good and bad. I would not have taken away any of his obstinance, I wouldn’t take away any of those experiences because all of those interactions made me stronger. It forced me to think about how I’m talking and dialoguing and presenting, and how I’m interacting and honestly — and this drives teachers crazy — am I doing my job well enough? Didn’t I organize it? And it was never meant as a criticism, although I can understand how (for) teachers, sometimes that’s out of their comfort zone. I don’t get out of my comfort zone a lot. Okay, well (actually) I live out of my comfort zone. It’s a way of of hiding from people what my actual comfort zone is. But for Daniel, all the memories were positive. He, like many very bright young students, thought he was much, much funnier than he actually was. He would say something, try to make an ironic or other sly remark that played with words and then he would sit there looking at you, kind of with a little smirk on his face, looking to be acknowledged. I never gave him that. I’m not going to give any student that; I probably roasted him for it. But he was very much engaged and very much real, and I’ll miss him.

Interviewer: Are you able to talk a little bit more about his impact on you and your classroom? I know you mentioned pushing you a bit out of your comfort zone with the questioning, is that right?

McQueen: Yeah, it was. For me, the ideal class environment is you have a critical mass of enough people who are interested that other people observe that and want to be like that and want to follow along. You can create — even in a high school environment, where you have varying degrees of maturity — if you do it right, you can create a dynamic where you know the people who want to learn and the people who are hungry to learn can model that behavior for other people. And if you also have an environment where it’s inquiry based, which I think is what IB wants to be, where it’s okay to ask questions, that takes away a little of the — not the power of the teacher, but the need of the teacher to be always right, to be a protector of information. And I think Daniel — I can remember exactly where he sat. I can remember the number of times I did have to tell him to stop multitasking … but I also remember that he was part of creating this climate of serious discussion. And if you can create that in the classroom, other people will come along. Because that seems more meaningful than a worksheet. And particularly the things like political science, you have to make it meaningful. Math has an extrinsic value: ‘This is going to get me a job.’ English has an extrinsic value: ‘I get to be the cool person who likes art and literature’ or ‘I’m going to have to learn to read and write.’ Science has an extrinsic value: ‘I’m going to be an engineer; I want to be pre med.’ History and poli sci — even psychology as a social science has a little more street cred. And so the fact that Daniel was there to help create this academic environment — he was part of that part of the class that made it go.

Interviewer: And I have to ask. Did he ever bring his break dancing cardboard into your class? 

McQueen: *Laughs* No, he did not. No, the way he smiled, I knew he had something going on somewhere. But no, he did not show me any of the break dancing things. Now I regret not asking.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you would like to add about him? How you will remember him?

McQueen: I will remember him as the type of student that every teacher wants to teach. Not always easy, but like I said in the beginning, I’m kind of tired of the kids who are easy to teach. Sometimes I like the kids who have that spirit and have that — like I said, that thirst to learn and that thirst to knowledge. Intrinsic value is a word I’ve been using a lot lately … And when you see a kid ask a question — and this is Daniel — and you could see that crinkle in their forehead. You can look at a facial expression and you can see the question is, ‘You just don’t understand it, you didn’t follow. Or the question is (because) you’re lost. But that crinkle in the forehead means, ‘Hey, wait a minute, there’s something wrong here,’ and you ask that question, that’s when you can see the wheels turning, and that’s what I remember about him.

Morgan Wiese ‘23 worked with Daniel in theater. 

Interviewer: How did you know Daniel and what was your first impression of him?

Wiese: I knew Daniel since high school, at least, from my earliest memory. My first impression of him was when he applied to be in tech theater, and reading over his application, he wrote something really sarcastic down and it made me laugh. And then when I met him in person, he was the same kind of goofy kind person, and he was very nice guy.

Interviewer: How would you describe him to someone who didn’t know him?

Wiese: He was very nice. He was always there for you. He did everything for everyone, and if he felt like you didn’t have enough food, he’d give you food, or he’d make you eat plenty of food. He’d always make jokes, and he was just a good person to be around. He was very uplifting.

Interviewer: What comes to mind first when you think of Daniel?

Wiese: Stubborn, but kind.

Interviewer: Do you have any stories or memories that go with that?

Wiese: It was my junior or senior year, one of my last years at Inglemoor, he had this piece of cardboard that he’d break dance on. And he would carry it everywhere with him, and then he put it and store it in the theater classroom when he was done. And everybody knew that was Daniel’s cardboard. And then one day it just disappeared, and someone threw it away — I think it was Lauren — and he was all up in arms, frustrated, and so he sought out to find new cardboard. But nothing was the same and good enough like the original piece of dancing cardboard. And he was always doing something goofy or funny.

Interviewer: Did he dance on it very often? He would break dance, right? 

Wiese: He would try to. *Laughs* He’d put the cardboard down, and he’d try to break dance on it. It was pretty great. It was always funny.

Interviewer: When he worked with you in theater, what was that experience like?

Wiese: Awesome. We had a running joke between the two of us where every time we’d be in another show we would be, ‘Oh, you’re doing this again.’ And then the other person would respond with, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.’ But it was always fun. It was always engaging. And he always made everyone laugh around. It pretty great.

Interviewer: Do you have any memories or stories that you remember in particular?

Wiese: There was this constant banter and bicker between the two of us, but we were always having fun with each other and poking fun. And even when I came back the year after I graduated, to visit a couple times while they were doing another show, he acted like a big brother, sometimes, even though I’m older. And he would scold me if he heard me talking about the fact that I was procrastinating a big assignment and I was there instead and be like ‘You need to get that done, you need to get that done.’ But it was always great. He constantly whooped me in GamePigeon, so that was not at all frustrating. But he just constantly made jokes. And when he gave — one season, people would give tours to the new tech theater classes — they’d walk them through everything and explain parts of the theater and explain the different areas you could apply to. And his thing was sound. And he was always like, ‘Don’t touch any of the buttons. Don’t touch the buttons or don’t mess anything up.’ It was always pretty funny because he always kind of seemed intimidating sometimes to people, but he would always help if you needed help.

Interviewer: I’ve heard that a lot from many different people, that he was really caring, he was really supportive. What would you say his impact on you was?

Wiese: He made high school bearable. I didn’t have the greatest high school experience, but he was one of probably a handful of people that actually made my high school experience better. And I always looked forward to seeing him in class, because we would tease each other; I would look forward to seeing him in general because it was always fun banter. It was always entertaining and engaging, but I always knew that he was going to be there. He definitely made my life better.

Interviewer: How will you remember him?

Wiese: I’ll remember him as the guy that would always make me laugh and that would brighten my day, even if I was having the worst of days. He was always just a light in the room. Even when he was angry, he was kind of funny angry, if that makes sense. It was always very great. And anytime I think about like, ‘I’m never gonna do this again,’ even in high school, I’d be like, ‘I’m never gonna do this again,’ I’d always think about Daniel in the background going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of thing.’

Emma Jurado ‘24 met Daniel in sixth grade at Northshore Middle School. She said he was one of her best friends for most of high school.

Interviewer: How you would describe him to someone who didn’t know him? 

Jurado: I would say Daniel was a very caring person. He would always act like he didn’t care about things, but then he secretly did — that was a really big thing about him. But he was super kind and a really funny person; he would make the weirdest jokes, but you couldn’t help but laugh at them every time.

Interviewer: What comes to mind first when you think of Daniel?

Jurado: When I think of Daniel, the first thing that comes to my mind is his jokes, honestly. He had the kind of humor where he would act mean, but you knew he really cared … And he definitely pulled mini pranks. One of his favorite things to do was to point out someone’s shirt and pretend they had something on it. And then when you look down, he flicks your head up. He did that to me so often.

Interviewer: Can you tell me about any special memories or stories that you associate with him?

Jurado: Earlier this year, in December, when I was home from college, I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and I posted on my story complaining about it. And then within half an hour of me posting that on my story, there was a knock on our door, and Daniel had shown up with ice cream and a Funkopop from a show that me and him would watch all the time together. And my mom opened the door and she’s like, ‘Oh, Emma’s right upstairs right now, she just got her wisdom teeth out.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, I know, I brought her this stuff for her.’ And it was so quickly — literally within 30 minutes of me posting on my story that I just got my wisdom teeth out — he came over right away and we hung out for a little bit before I went back to school.

Interviewer: A lot of people I’ve talked to have described him as really spontaneous. Would you agree with that?

Jurado: For sure. He was always willing to do whatever he could. If anyone ever complained of ‘Oh, I need a ride to go somewhere,’ he would be like, ‘Okay, I’m at your house, let’s go.’ One time, he was skateboarding — because me and him both live very close to Inglemoor High School — once he was skateboarding on the street right by my house. And my family was leaving to meet my cousins for dinner, and we just saw him skateboarding, and we made a joke like, ‘Hey, do you want to come to dinner with us?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And so he jumped in our car, and it was me, my mom, my sister, my brother, my dad and then my cousins from Olympia, who drove up for a different event, and we all ended up having dinner together with him too. 

Interviewer: Aside from watching watching the show, and spending time with your family, what did you guys like to do together?

Jurado: He got very close with a lot of my family. Me and my sister and him would watch Jujutsu Kaisen. We watched that together, especially the newest season; we watched almost all that together. Me and him would go out to random parks and restaurants, or sometimes we would just go on a drive or try this new boba place he took me to once, and other random things. We would hang out together a lot with our friend group. We had pretty much the same friend group from end of middle school through all of high school, and we would go — he loved cooking, so he’d kind of force us into cooking something sometimes, but it was always fun. 

Interviewer: Are there any other memories that you think of most often when you think of Daniel?

Jurado: One thing during this past year — I went to school in Pittsburgh, so on the east coast — and one of the things I had was every single day, Monday through Friday, I had an 8 a.m. ballet class, which meant I was getting up at 6:00, 6:30 every single day, like I said, Monday through Friday. And one day, I was replying to my snaps at 6 a.m. because I was up and I just sent him a selfie of myself before I got ready for class and stuff. And he responded immediately, within a minute, and it was a photo of himself, and he just said, ‘You look miserable.’ I was like, ‘Oh. So that’s not what you expect to see’ — it was like, 6 a.m. And then I was thought about it for a second: it’s 6 a.m. on the east coast, which meant it was 3am in Oregon, where he was at. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, what are you doing up so early?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I haven’t gone to bed yet. I was staying up late; I was working on homework. I haven’t gone to bed.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, I literally just woke up. This is crazy and stuff.’ And so that day, he FaceTimed me, and I just talked to him for 30ish minutes before he ended up finally going to sleep. And we just chatted about our day, how our first semester of college was going and stuff like that … He always picked up on the small details of things. He was saying the bags under my eyes looked really big, and that’s how he could tell I wasn’t getting enough sleep and that I needed to be drinking more water, since I’ve been so busy at school. Just small things like that, he always noticed — things that you would think would go unnoticed, he usually picked up on and would remember.

Interviewer: Aside from history, were you in any other classes with him? Do you know what he was like as a student?

Jurado: Oh, yeah, he almost always put would put his hand up. I had a lot of classes with him: I had math class with him a few times; I never actually ended up in the same English class with him, but we had the same teachers a lot; history we were in together. We just had a lot of classes together. But that was one thing that we were talking about with Daniel is that even when he didn’t necessarily know what to say, he would still raise his hand and participate. He would always participate in class, especially when Mr. Lowell — this specific moment — he would teach in class and a lot of times he’d reach out to the class and be like, ‘So any questions or anything?’ and no one would respond. And every time that happened, Daniel would put his arm up and he’d ask either a random question or give a completely unnecessary bit of information just (so) he wouldn’t feel like he was talking to a blank wall — a crowd of people who didn’t care and stuff.”

Interviewer: What was he like as part of the theater community?

Jurado: He participated a lot in basically everything — especially during tech theater classes. I know he built a sawhorse at one point because I guess one had either broken or he was complaining there wasn’t enough, it was something like that. And so then he just went out of his way and he was like, ‘I guess I’ll build one because we need one anyways.’ And so he went ahead and built one. He was kind of like mean but in a caring way. And so he’d pick on a lot of people and crack jokes and lighten the mood. He’d always complain, though, because he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know why I’m doing theater. I’m in the sound booth all day in a dark room by myself, doing all this work,’ because all of our shows always had a lot of sound cues, and he had to do all this stuff. And he’d complain about it every single show, and he’s like, ‘Oh, I need to quit. I’m so tired of this.’ But then he’d come back for every single show; he did not miss a single show. He kept coming back. And actually, in college, he ended up doing — I think it was either like a local theater or a part of his school — they needed something with tech, and so he ended up helping out and being a part of theater again in college. And so he definitely he enjoyed it a lot, and he had a lot of fun with it.

Interviewer: Is there anything else you would like to add about your time with Daniel? How you remember him? 

Jurado: I feel like I covered a lot of it. He was super kind, helpful. He had this one thing with authority figures and stuff, where — this was actually mentioned a few times at his memorial service — he would always call my mom and my dad ‘Mr. Jurado, Mrs. Jurado.’ And all of our friends, parents, even when we go up to high school and you could just call them by their name, you don’t have to do that. But he always made a point of doing that. Same with Aylin Dutt was our president last year and stuff, and he would always call her pres, every time, like madam president or pres. And same thing with a few of our stage managers through theater, he would call them boss. It was just something he always did, and it was a cute little quirk of him. But I know it made my parents’ day when he’d be like, ‘Hello, Mrs. Jurado,’ as he walks in the door, and it’s just kind of an odd thing that he would do, but it was really cute and we all loved it.

Ashley Gordon ‘24 met Daniel in fourth grade and took taekwondo classes at the same dojang. 

Interviewer: How would you describe him to someone who doesn’t know him?

Gordon: The absolute sweetest person on earth. He was the absolute, most selfless person I knew.. And you could call him or text him whenever you’re sad or anything, and he would immediately be there and he’d bring you your favorite candies and foods and stuff. I never asked for any rides from him, but I know a lot of people who needed rides could always count on Daniel for one, and there’s no bad thing we could ever say about him. He was that good of a person.

Interviewer: I’ve heard that very many times when interviewing people. Is there a specific memory that comes to mind whenever you think about him?

Gordon: There’s a few memories. He took me and a couple of our friends to this — I think it was for Vietnamese New Year — there was this festival in Seattle, and he and a couple of our friends had gone up there, and that’s where I tried Vietnamese coffee for the first time. And he was just so proud of his culture, and that’s probably one of my favorite memories that I have with him. And I guess another one was probably (when) I was going through a really tough time, and I didn’t know who to talk to, so I texted him. I was like, “Hey, I’m kind of going through it, could we talk?” And he was like, “I will be right over.” And he was there, like I said, with a bunch of candy and snacks and stuff, and we just sat in my room and just sat next to each other, and I just cried on his shoulder and just spoke, and he just immediately made me feel so confident. There’s a million memories that I could think of. In fourth grade, I was really obsessed with unicorns for no reason, and I just decided to draw a bunch of different types of unicorns. And for some reason, of all people, I chose Daniel to draw a unicorn of his favorite animal or something. And I was like, “Okay, what’s your favorite animal?” And he said, “Oh, I like turtles.” So I drew a turtle unicorn hybrid for him. And I don’t know why I did it. 

Interviewer: You just invented a new mythical creature? 

Gordon: Yeah, just for Daniel, yeah. Let’s see. Since we had the same friend group, we had gone to so many birthday parties together, a bunch of homecomings. He never told us when his birthday was, but we all knew it was December 31. But any time that you’d say “happy birthday” to him on December 31, he’d be like, “It’s not my birthday. My birthday is in March.” So to everyone, his birthday was in March, even though we all knew it wasn’t in March. It’s really hard to just summarize him as a person.

Interviewer: Do you know why he would say his birthday was in March?

Gordon: I just don’t think he liked the fact that his birthday was on New Year’s Eve. It’d probably be like having your birthday on Christmas or something; everybody’s busy out celebrating it. It was either that or he just thought it was funny to say it was during March. That was a very Daniel thing. 

Interviewer: Yeah, I’ve heard of him being very spontaneous with the cardboard that he would bring around. And I was just talking to (Emma Regala), and she said that he would make a bunch of things from tech theater and bring them around.

Gordon: I remember — because I had English class with him after he had tech theater — and he’d always come into class just absolutely covered in paint.

Interviewer: You mentioned that you had English class with him. What was he like as a student in class?

Gordon: He was so fun. He would crack jokes in the middle of class, but not to the entire class like a class clown or anything, but he would whisper them to you. And I remember I had another English class with him where it was the same teacher, but I didn’t really have any other friends in that class, and he was just my only friend in that class. And we would do these things called Fun Fridays, and our teacher didn’t like it when we would just do homework for Fun Fridays; she wanted us to actually have fun. But I was like, “I don’t really have any friends,” so I would just go hang out with Daniel and whoever he was hanging out with, and I remember he taught me how to play a few different types of card games. And honestly, he always made everyone feel so — he could have not spoken to me. He could have just been like, ‘Oh, sorry I’m busy. But he always (was) super kind and caring.

Interviewer: Since you’ve known him since fourth grade, you pretty much grew up with him, right? What would you say his impact on you has been?

Gordon: It’s really hard to kind of summarize the impact he’s placed on me, but he’s subconsciously made me more empathetic, I’d say. And I don’t think I’d — obviously, I’d known how much he had done for everybody — but I don’t think it ever really hit me until he passed away that I guess just the mindset of, “Do what Daniel would have done” or “What would Daniel want you to do in this situation?” I remember, after hearing about his death, I just lost my appetite. I just felt so awful all the time. But I keep taking care of myself, because I know that Daniel — if I had said anything to Daniel about me feeling like that, he’d be like, “Okay, well, let’s get you some food, and let’s have you drink some water, you’ll be okay,” all that kind of stuff. So I guess overall, he has kept me taking care of myself and of other people as much as I try to.

Interviewer: To wrap up, how will you remember him?

Gordon: Just the same way I’ve always thought of him. Just (an) amazing friend, just the absolute, the sweetest person on earth. I genuinely never met anybody who was more kind and caring and generous than Daniel … Honestly, I think he was too good for this world. If he could have been anywhere, I don’t think Earth was the place for him. I think it was just not good enough.