Currently two articles were written about Derek in The Union newspaper. Here they are:
Students mourn kayaker By Doug Mattson - Wed, Jun 7, 2000
One of the Best By Kenny Hibbard Charlotte, N.C. - Fri, Jun 9, 2000

Students mourn kayaker: Outgoing NU junior loved adventure, say friends, family

Students decorated Derek Snellings locker and left flowers at Nevada Union High School on Tuesday. Eileen Joyce

Nevada Union High School students on Tuesday remembered Derek Snellings, the 16-year-old junior who died in a kayaking accident Monday on the North Yuba River near Downieville.

Students decorated his locker, left flowers, and talked in groups or with counselors provided by the school, said Assistant Principal Duane Triplett.

"The kids were really preferring to be in small groups and hang out together, and we just had people near them to work with them," Triplett said.

Counselors will be available on campus through Thursday, the end of the school year.

At about 4 p.m. Monday, Snellings was kayaking south of Downieville on a section of rapids called Two Pair, which are Class 4 and 5 rapids - with Class 5 being the most demanding.

His kayak flipped, and he became stuck underwater, according to his father, Tim Snellings, director of the county Community Development Agency. It took rescuers about three hours to retrieve Snellings and his kayak.

The elder Snellings said his son was a kayaking enthusiast who had planned to make 100 runs this year. Monday's tragedy marked his 32nd run.

"He really didn't do anything wrong," Tim Snellings said. "He was with three expert boaters very familiar with that stretch; his boat just got stuck in a certain stretch, and he couldn't get out of it."

A kayaker died last year along the same rapids, Sierra County Sheriff's Deputy Tim Stanley said.

Discussing the North Yuba stretch south of Downieville, he added, "I'm sad to say it's claimed lives pretty nearly every year. I'm not a kayaker and I'm not a rafter, but it does happen. Maybe it happens in other rivers. I don't know - we get a lot of people up here."

Snellings' friend since the fourth grade, 16-year-old Jedd Snyder, called him "really outgoing, fearless, a real people person, just trying to be friends with everybody."

There were a lot of tears and sadness at school, Snyder said. "Pretty much three-fourths of the people were bummed out. A lot of people were shocked."

Snellings, of Nevada City, was the second-oldest of Tim Snellings and Susan Prentice's three children. He had a 4.0 grade-point average and worked at Papa Murphy's Pizza and Wolf Creek Wilderness, a Grass Valley kayaking outfitter. His other interests included mountain biking and snowboarding, and he was a devout Christian.

"He was a very special kid, very precious," Tim Snellings said. "If you talked to people, he was a very impacting person to a lot of people. He touched a lot of hearts and a lot of lives."

Prentice, who home-schooled Derek until the sixth grade, added adventuresome, happy-go-lucky, creative and courageous to the list of her son's attributes.

"He was athletic. He played a lot of sports," Prentice said. "He liked extreme things.

"I was really proud" of the way he was, she said. "He was a 'seize-the-day' person. ... He was a lobbyist; he lobbied hard to go kayaking.

"I think everybody that met him loved him," she said. "He was a very lovable person, and I will miss him."

A memorial service by Twin Cities Church will be held at 10 a.m. Friday at the Grass Valley Veterans Hall, 255 S. Auburn St.

By Doug Mattson - Wed, Jun 7, 2000

One of the Best

Derek Snellings was a great young man. He died this past Monday in a river accident.

I served as his youth pastor for three years while on staff at Twin Cities Church. I'm now pastor a church in North Carolina. He was one of those kids whose smile and charisma light up a room. Derek was blessed with athletic skills, an inviting personality, and wonderful family that raised him to be an incredible young man. However, more than all the noticeable outward signs, was a heart that was pure! Derek lived his life devoted to God and to a passionate pursuit of following Christ. My memories of Derek are flooded with scenes of him serving the poor of inner city San Francisco. As a teen-ager devoting himself to a weekly small group Bible study where he accepted the challenge to live for God and serve others. (No small feat for a teen-ager in today's culture.) Derek would arrive early and leave late to help set up and take down for our Student Ministry services. He was always the one inviting his friends to our church so they could experience the joy of knowing Christ personally. Always the joker, Derek lived out his Christian values in a way that was his own style. He loved God and his family and he worked hard to honor both.

By Kenny Hibbard Charlotte, N.C. - Fri, Jun 9, 2000