10-year-old killed in Kansas school district accident liked recess and P.E., obit says

A 10-year-old Kansas boy who died after an accident in a school district SUV loved to be outside on his trampoline and pretend to fight bad guys with made-up weapons, his obituary says.

Triptyn Ray Reynolds died Jan. 13 when the Chevrolet Suburban he was in overturned on a rural road in Jewell County.

The single-vehicle accident involved five students and a driver. The student who died was the youngest of four siblings in the SUV, according to Kansas Highway Patrol trooper Ben Gardner. He said all the others involved in the accident were taken to the hospital as a precaution.

The driver was headed north on a rural road when she went into the ditch, swerved back into the road, and then “went into a yaw and overturned,” a KHP trooper wrote in the crash log. The SUV came to rest in the west ditch facing southwest, the trooper wrote.

Triptyn’s obituary tells more about the child who died.

Triptyn was also known as “Trippy” in his fifth-grade class at Rock Hills Elementary for “spending most of his time on the floor” either from tripping “over nothing, to just rolling around on the floor,” his obituary says.

He excelled at math, but recess and P.E. were his favorite times at school, the obituary says.

“Trippy was known for his infectious smile, endless energy, loving hugs, and his gift for never knowing a stranger,” the obituary says. “Trippy spent all his time outside on the trampoline, fighting bad guys with whatever weapon he could dream up.”

He also liked playing the online game Roblox “with Cole” and recently got a virtual reality headset, giving him a “new source to release some of his energy,” his obituary says.

A “Triptyn R. Memorial Fund” has been established at Central National Bank, 208 E South Street in Mankato, Kansas, 66956. Donations can be mailed there or dropped off at any of the bank’s branches in the state. A list of locations can be found at centralnational.com under the locations section.

Triptyn is survived by his parents, Dustin and Alisha; brothers Tristyn and Treyton; sister Tayla; grandparents Dan and Mary Reynolds and John and Sheryl Shuler, and several aunts, uncles and cousins.

A visitation and funeral are planned for later this week.