After a stranger’s death, they vowed to honor his 2-year-old daughter. They kept their promise.

Steve Beck was the first to spot the overturned garbage truck in the Green River gorge on that cold day in November 2006.

Beck and his business associate Bill Kombol were driving to a development project when they came upon the still-steaming wreckage.

Over the next few minutes, the pair would wage a desperate attempt to save the driver’s life.

Ultimately, the day would end in tragedy. But Beck and Kombol weren’t ready to walk away from the life that Celio Penamante, a complete stranger to them, had left behind.

Penamante, 31, had a wife and a 2-year-old daughter.

“When something affects you like that, you somehow want to make it right,” Kombol said. “We just thought, you know, this girl was growing up without a father.”

Kombol and Beck made a vow to each other. They would secretly keep an eye on the daughter from afar and someday, somehow, they would help her. And so they began setting aside money from various business ventures.

In May, more than 15 years after that horrific day in the Green River Gorge, they made good on that pledge.

Into the gorge

Today, a wooden cross bearing Penamante’s name, a hardhat and rosary beads marks the spot where the young father crashed.

On that day in 2006, Kombol and Beck peered into the cab of the crashed truck after scrambling down a slope. It was empty.

“And then I hear a moan,” Kombol recalled.

The businessmen tossed aside cardboard and debris until they found Penamante. He was lying on his back. A frightening amount of blood was flowing from his femoral artery.

Kombol, who had extensive first aid training, immediately applied pressure to the wound. Beck dialed 911 but couldn’t get a signal. As Kombol tended to Penamante, Beck drove to Black Diamond, just two miles away.

“I was going, probably between 90 and 100, at least,” Beck said. He came to a halt in front of city hall, where he was finally was able to notify authorities.

At the crash site, Penamante was mostly unresponsive.

“I’m just trying to comfort him,” Kombol recalled. “I’m just giving him ‘It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.’ ”

When Beck returned to the scene, Kombol told him to keep Penamante alert.

“So, I was screaming at him,” Beck said. Then he tried talking to him.

“I looked at him. I said, ‘Do you play soccer?’,” Beck recalled. “Bill kind of looked at me for a second, like, ‘Why did you ask him that?’”

Penamante responded to the question but whatever he said was unintelligible.

Medics arrived minutes later and took over Penamante’s care but he died soon after.

Days later, Beck got a call from Penamante’s parents. They wanted to hear about their son’s final moments. When they met he told them about the soccer question he had asked their son.

“Oh, geez, the mom just started … I mean, she got emotional,” Beck said. Penamante had played soccer at Federal Way’s Thomas Jefferson High School. As an adult, he coached soccer.

A father’s legacy

Alana Penamante has her father’s smile. It’s that grin, says Alana’s mother and Celio’s widow, Karla McKernan, that was his trademark.

“He was the type of person who always had a big smile on his face,” McKernan said. “Everybody loved him. People were just drawn to him because of his humor and his big smile.”

Although Alana has no memories of her father, she has grieved his loss.

“It comes in waves and comes and goes,” Alana, now 18, said this week.

Celio Penamante was born in Hawaii and grew up in Federal Way. He and McKernan made their home in University Place.

Penamante’s death left McKernan a single mother. It was a life she’d already experienced. She had raised Alana’s older sister, Kaitlynn, by herself before she met Penamante.

“So, being a single mom was something I had already endured,” she said. “I was already a fairly strong, independent woman. But the loss for my children was just the devastating part for me.”

Eventually, she later married Daniel McKernan. He brought a son to the relationship, and the couple later had twin boys.

“Having my stepdad there was really nice growing up, just having a father figure,” Alana said.

Alana also inherited her father’s love for soccer. She played for four years at Curtis Senior High School.

Keeping watch

Although McKernan was vaguely aware of Kombol, 69, and Beck, 66, she had no idea of their 15-year-long plan to help Alana. Even Celio’s parents, who Beck checked in with every few years, didn’t know the men were saving money for her.

The pair kept their distance from Alana, preferring to keep track of her through her grandparents.

“From time to time they did encourage us, ‘Hey, would you like to meet her?’ We’d say ‘No, just keep us up to speed on how she’s doing,’ ” Beck said.

As graduation neared, Beck checked in with Alana’s family more frequently, even watching her play soccer for a few minutes one day — the first time he had seen her.

They learned she had been accepted to the University of Arizona in Tucson where she plans on pursuing sports medicine.

“To see that this young girl, through the guidance of her mom and especially her grandparents, end up as good a gal as she is and going to college … that was even more encouragement to make sure we contributed some funds,” Beck said.

Shortly before Curtis’ annual scholarship awards on May 23, Alana received an email from one of her school principals informing her she had earned a scholarship and to attend the awards night.

“I never was told what it was or why I got it,” Alana said.

When Kombol and Beck took the stage that night, Kombol read a short speech.

“Tonight we present a scholarship to a girl we’ve never met from an accident she doesn’t remember,” Kombol began. “On an icy morning 16 years ago, my business partner and I drove down the Green River Gorge Road to inspect a property east of Black Diamond … ”

It had been a long night and Alana was only partially listening.

“And, so I hear the story being told and ‘Black Diamond’ just clicks in my head. And I’m like, whoa, wait, this is my story right here. And I hear everyone just go quiet,” Alana said.

When Kombol was finished, he asked her to come forward and accept a $10,000 scholarship.

“There’s people crying and … I feel like all eyes were on me at that point,” she said. Shock is the word she uses to describe the moment.

“I’m still shocked,” Alana said three months later. She is still processing emotions and the commitment Kombol and Beck unknowingly made to her all those years ago. “I still … I don’t really know how to put it into words.”

For McKernan, the vow the men made and their follow-up is something one only reads about.

“It’s just not something you ever think is going to happen to you or your children,” she said. “Obviously, these men are very special.”

McKernan isn’t a religious person, she said, but she feels Celio was somehow involved.

“I always felt like Celio has always been with us in some sort of way,” she said. “And, you know, he’s been with them, too.”

Arizona-bound

McKernan and Alana were on a mother-daughter trip to Tucson this week with a few days layover in Southern California to visit Universal Studios and other sights.

The trip is bittersweet for the pair. More tough times are ahead for the family. Daniel was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis this year. The progressive neurodegenerative disease has no cure.

Kombol and Beck aren’t sure how they’ll be involved in Alana’s life, if at all, going forward. For now, they are content to close this chapter.

“It was keeping a pledge that we made 15 years ago,” Kombol said.