Cyndi Loza

Kathleen Garrigan was working with Native American teens in Alaska, part of a string of volunteer projects that had, at last, led the Oak Park native to a career decision. Little more than a week ago, the 24-year-old Garrigan told her father during a phone conversation that she was going to go into non-profit administration, her family recalled this week.

It was the last time she and her father spoke.

Garrigan and two fellow canoeists disappeared on the popular Harding Lake, about 45 miles south of Fairbanks, during the Memorial Day weekend.

One of the three, identified as Liza Lomando, 20, was found dead in the waters Tuesday, and the canoe was located.

But Garrigan and a 19-year-old man identified as Travis Alexander were still missing Friday, and search teams continued looking for them.

Kathleen Garrigan’s sister and father have traveled to Alaska to help with the search.

On Friday, a tearful Marian Garrigan, Kathleen’s mother, said from the family’s home that faith and prayer are sustaining them as they face the unknown.

The three were last seen alive Sunday, and authorities have slowly been collecting clues about what may have happened.

Officials are investigating whether drinking may have been a factor. Searchers found a digital camera showing the three drinking from a bottle of Yukon Jack whiskey aboard the canoe, said Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen. An empty bottle of the whiskey was found on the lake’s shore, she said.

Authorities also searched their campsite near the lake, and while alcohol was found, there were no signs that the camp or the pickup they’d driven there had been disturbed, Ipsen said.

‘My duty to serve others’

The three were AmeriCorps volunteers overseen by the Tanana Chiefs Conference, the nonprofit cultural, health services and jobs corporation. They worked in Nenana, southwest of Fairbanks, and had driven to the popular park for the long holiday weekend.

Garrigan arrived in Alaska and began her AmeriCorps work in January.

She loved sports and had played volleyball, basketball and softball at Oak Park-River Forest High School, her mother said. She was a four-year varsity volleyball player at St. Joseph’s College in Indiana.

“She was a very lively girl who was blessed with abundant energy,” her mother said.

An application letter to AmeriCorps provides some insight into her goals: “My religious beliefs remind me that it is my duty to serve others.”

She also hoped her AmeriCorps work would expose her to different cultures.

Her family said she easily found herself at home no matter where she lived and worked.

“I think she made a determination that this kind of giving back to the community is what she wants to make her life,” said her uncle Thomas Brandstrader, 57, of Highland Park.