MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Elks Lodge was nearly at capacity Saturday after hundreds of attendees packed in to support the fifth annual fundraiser for the Cody DeTrolio Memorial Scholarship.

Over 220 tickets were sold, which, along with proceeds from the live and silent auctions, raised around $17,000 to help pay for a variety of scholarships to provide children and teens access to lessons in music, agriculture and junior rodeo.

It was the largest fundraiser yet, said Cody’s mother, Kris DeTrolio, in an interview, who added she’s blown away year after year by the outpouring of support from the rodeo community.

Born to Eric and Kris DeTrolio on June 30, 1997, Cody was 17 when he passed away in 2015, just a few weeks short of his 18th birthday, after a freak car accident, Kris said.

Growing up in Warden, Cody held himself differently than most kids, his mother said, independently both full of irrepressible laughter and guided by an unerring sense of ethics.

“He didn’t go with the flow or the norm; he was very confident in who he was and what he was,” Kris said. “He was a good kid. He didn’t want to drink and party or anything like that. He just wanted to do the right thing.”

Cody started showing horses and cattle with 4-H when he was 9 and fell in love with agricultural work at a young age, Kris said. He wasn’t satisfied with the carcass quality of the first steer he ever raised, one pulled from the pasture with a decent temperament but limited potential, and he became determined to improve the stock.

“He and his dad started a little breeding program, and after that his steers were pretty nice,” Kris said.

He joined the Future Farmers of America when he entered high school. He started Running Start in his junior year, allowing him to earn high school credits while attending classes at Big Bend Community College. He still took some classes at the high school just so he would stay eligible for the FFA, Kris said.

He loved watching and taking part in rodeos, demo derbies and fairs, or any other good-hearted contest of the American West, Kris said, and could often be found in the stands hooting and hollering for just about everyone, even the people that might have beat him.

A young man of many talents, Cody was also an avid musician, learning guitar at an early age with Scott Oakerland at Moses Lake Music, later picking up the mandolin and drums.

He was also a trap shooter. On the day of his accident he had been on garbage duty at the combine demo derby in Lind, earning some money at a regular summer gig for him and other kids on his trap shooting team.

But after a long day’s work, driving back home after midnight, Cody’s 1995 Chevrolet pickup left the road and rolled down an embankment. He died at the scene.

To this day, no one knows what might have happened that night, Kris said. There were no drugs and alcohol in his system, and Kris describes the accident report as hundreds of pages of “we don’t know why.”

He had been raising two steers before he died, intended for the Grant and Adams county fairs. In honor of their friend, kids from both the FFA and 4-H finished the steers out, showed them at the fairs, and sold them for close to $60,000 in total.

The DeTrolios decided to use the money to start a scholarship fund for kids who wanted to get involved in agricultural studies or other activities in keeping with the traditions of the American West, like junior rodeo or bluegrass music.

That might have been the end of it, Kris said, had Lynnette McMillan of the Adrian Cattle Company not suggested holding an annual fundraiser to build on the scholarship fund.

Saturday’s was the fifth such fundraiser, and the scholarship fund has helped pay for tens of thousands of dollars in college scholarships, add-ons at the county fairs for children’s livestock that aren’t selling well, tuition fees for music camps and more, Kris said.

The successful fundraisers each year have been a testament to the rodeo and agricultural communities, Kris said, with supportive volunteers and donors such as Sue Tebow, Lynnette and Mark McMillan, Craig and Bonnie Schafer, Helen Puth, Miranda Streeter, Chris Beck, and El Oro Cattle Feeders, as well as junior rodeo kids and members of the Moses Lake Roundup.

“It blows my mind every year,” Kris said. “The people you saw (Saturday) night are the same people who have surrounded us ever since the accident. Every year I’m in awe of this community and these people.”