Ethan Chapin, left, with the tulip mixed named “Ethan’s Smile”.Photo: Courtesy Chapin Family; Andrew Miller/Tulip Valley Farms
Ethan Chapinloved his friends and family, sports, country music and the tulip farm where he worked last spring in his hometown Mount Vernon, Wash.
Andrew Miller, co-owner and CEO of Tulip Valley Farms in Washington, tells PEOPLE that Chapin worked at a farm he managed during the 2021 season and quickly became a friend and role model to all who worked there.
“Ethan was a kid that I could put on the hardest jobs with the people who might have been grumpy, and then they wouldn’t be grumpy anymore,” Miller said.
Reese Gardner, 18, became fast friends with Chapin that spring, too.
“He was always just the nicest guy out on the field,” Gardner tells PEOPLE. “I would go to work when I wasn’t scheduled just so I could hang out with Ethan.”
Chapin, 20, and his girlfriend Xana Kernodle, 20, and two of her roommates, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Maddie Mogen, 21, werekilled in an off-campus residencenearly three weeks ago in Moscow, Idaho, where they were all four students at the University of Idaho. No suspects have been named or arrested.
After Miller heard the news about Chapin’s untimely death, he and Gardner sprung into action to come up with a unique way to honor him.
Telling Chapin’s friends and former coworkers about his death “was just a real struggle,” Miller said. “But immediately, because we’re fix-it people, it’s like well what can we do? There are very meaningful ways to honor people’s legacy, but it’s really hard with young people.”
Miller and Gardner landed on the idea of naming a yellow and white tulip mix in his honor. Now, there are gardens with this mix, named “Ethan’s Smile,” at Tulip Valley Farms as well as Chapin’s elementary school.
“Tulips are iconic for Skagit Valley and a smile is iconic for Ethan,” Miller says.
Ethan’s Smile tulip mix.Andrew Miller/Tulip Valley Farms
There are many reasons they chose yellow and white for the mix of tulips, including the fact that yellow is one of the primary colors of the University of Idaho and of Ethan’s elementary school.
“Also, there’s some symbolism in that because yellow is a joy color and white is an eternal color,” Miller says. “So to be able to really combine the eternal joy that Ethan brought into the world and to be able to extend that is pretty meaningful.”
And as far as the name goes, well, it was just fitting.
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“There was never an ounce of bad in that guy,” Gardner says. “He was just so nice and kind, and I think the tulips are great because you can look out and see them and they remind you of Ethan, because of how pure he was and he was a beautiful person, and you can see that represented in the tulips.”
Next spring, the yellow and white tulips will begin to bloom.
“We’ve got 25,000 Ethan’s Smile already planted in the field for anybody that wants to come out next spring to the Tulip Festival at Tulip Valley Farms and see that,” Miller says.
Gardner says they also plan to try and get the Ethan’s Smile tulip mix planted at the University of Idaho and at Mt. Vernon High School, where Chapin went to school.
Next year, Tulip Valley Farms will also sell the tulip mix for anyone around the country who wants to plant an Ethan’s Smile garden of their own.
“If you can grow tulips,” Andrew says, “you can honor Ethan’s smile”
source: people.com
