By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

A jet ski crash that killed 18-year-old Christopher Scott Jenkins over the Memorial Day weekend was a rarity in Loudoun County, sheriff's officials said yesterday. What made it even more unusual was that it occurred on a private lake on a cattle farm.

"Jet skis in Loudoun? You know, this is surprising, because these kids around here are raised on dry land," said Gary Hornbaker, rural resources coordinator for the county's Department of Economic Development.

Sheriff's Office spokesman Kraig Troxell said he was also surprised when he heard a report Sunday afternoon of a jet ski crash in the county and thought perhaps it had happened in the Potomac River.

The jet ski, operated by Jenkins, collided with a boat driven by a man with a 7-year-old passenger in a lake near Hillsboro in western Loudoun, Troxell said. The occupants of the boat were treated at hospitals for injuries that were not life-threatening, he said.

"At this point in the investigation, it appears it was a tragic accident," Troxell said. He declined to name the two injured people.

The crash occurred while Jenkins was at a family gathering at his grandfather's 300-plus-acre Meadow Hill Farm, once owned by the family of entertainer Arthur Godfrey. Jenkins's grandfather, Donald Virts, is a pillar of Loudoun's agricultural community, having owned or worked on Godfrey's former farm for more than 40 years. Jenkins's parents, Chris and Cindy Jenkins, are members of the Loudoun Cattlemen's Association.

Hornbaker has known the family for two decades, and he said he watched Jenkins, who went by his middle name, Scott, participate year after year in 4-H events and at the state fair.

"This is not like a family that just spends weeks at the beach and owns a place on a lake somewhere. You know, these are farm kids," Hornbaker said. "But they are out there having a good time in the water, and whew! Terrible accidents happen."

Across Virginia, about 20 percent of boating accidents involve jet skis, according to the state's Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, which is investigating the accident with the Loudoun Sheriff's Office. Six of the 31 boating accidents reported in Virginia this year have involved jet skis. Two of every three that were collisions involved a jet ski, or personal watercraft, as the state calls them.

"One of the recreational activities in a PWC is to play around in the wake of other boats," said Charlie Sledd, the department's boating safety director. "And that puts you in pretty close distance to other boats. And it doesn't take too much of a faulty move, and you're right up on the other boat."

Troxell said the investigation will determine, among other things, whether the Bayliner Jazz boat was properly registered and licensed. Witnesses will be interviewed, and a medical examiner's report will be reviewed, Sledd said.

Around Loudoun yesterday, Jenkins was remembered as a quiet teenager who liked nothing better than working on his grandfather's farm and showing animals at the fair.

"I'd see him tending his cattle and his pigs and just hanging around the barns," said Kim Monroe, the county's 4-H program technician.

Jenkins was a member of Future Farmers of America for the four years he attended Loudoun Valley High School, assistant principal Sam Gross said. "He was very quiet and never in trouble," Gross said of the 2006 graduate.

In the county's agricultural community, people were trying to make sense of the crash.

"Everybody is just shaking their heads. This is so hard to believe," Hornbaker said. "Gee whiz, this was just a terrible, terrible accident. We will miss Scott. He was just a heck of a nice country kid."