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The auditorium at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School will never be the same for Principal Karen Lockard.

Usually the meeting place for school assemblies, it became on Sunday a shrine to her son, Adam Lockard, 21, who died Jan. 30 in a Colorado house fire.

Hundreds turned out to celebrate his life at a Valentine's Day memorial, in which Adam's life was recalled in a series of images on a projection screen—a toddler in a Batman costume, a teen performing bicycle stunts, a man in full ski gear ready to hit the powder.

Friends and relatives remembered the former Bethesda resident as joyous, effervescent, a contagious optimist.

"I always looked to Adam for, I guess, guidance in a way, to get the most out of life," recalled longtime friend Sam Koenig, who played an acoustic tribute of Green Day's "Time of Your Life" at the memorial. Green Day was one of Adam's favorite bands; Adam taught Koenig his first chords on the guitar with another Green Day song, "When I Come Around."

Isabelle Koenig, Sam's mother and a family friend, read some words on behalf of Adam's parents, Karen and David Lockard. She said Adam had been attending Western State College in Gunnison, Colo., a school he chose for its proximity to skiing and outdoor opportunities.

"I have been lucky to find this valley," he wrote in an application for an internship to the Adaptive Sports Center in Crested Butte, Colo., where he was teaching people with severe injuries and disabilities to ski.

Just a week before he died, Adam called his mother from a mountain top, where he had just taught an Iraq War veteran to use a skiing device. He called it "the best day of my life."

A senior, Adam was about to graduate with a degree in psychology and a minor in outdoor leadership and resort management. For his capstone project, he planned to put on a guitar concert to raise money for the Adaptive Sports Center.

"Adam did not become the person his parents expected him to be," Isabelle Koenig said. "He became someone different, someone better."

According to a statement from Western State College, the house fire began on the outside of the building and spread inside. Adam had resided at the house. Another Western State student, Lucille "Lucy" Grace Causley, 18, of Harbor Springs, Mich., also died in the fire, according to the statement. Four other students in the house were not hurt by the blaze.

Adam was the 2006 hockey captain at B-CC, where coach J.T. Burton plans to retire his number, 26. Burton, of Rockville, said Adam "truly changed the role forever" with his leadership on and off the ice. Burton said his role as a coach is often to guide players from boys into men, but Adam was a standout in that transformation.

"I don't change these kids. I give them the opportunity to change. No other player ever took advantage of that like No. 26," Burton said.

Francis Tatem, a friend of Adam's since elementary school, recalled a health class assignment in which students were to set goals for themselves.

"Most of them were B.S.," he said, adding that Adam thought seriously about the assignment and set out to ride his bicycle a certain number of miles each day.

"This kid, when he says something he means it, and it's that kind of drive and passion for things that really inspires me to this day," Tatem said.

Adam taught everyone around him to be happy, said Tatem, who is now a photographer, having been taught to develop film by Adam.

"I'm taking pictures and that's something that makes me happy and that's because of him," Tatem said. "He was in Colorado living the dream and I know he wouldn't have it any other way."