If you had to write an obit...

...this would be one:

"Adam was like a penguin ," Vinnie Archuletta, a University of Northern Colorado sophomore tells me over the phone.

"Adam was like a penguin," he says, "He was very mysterious... but he was very good at teamwork, and he had a great personality. He was always fun to be around." Adam, a University of Colorado Boulder student and friend of Archuletta, died Sunday at Boulder Hospital of heart complications, according to medical records. Only 20 years old, Adam Scurto still found time in his two decades to serve as a leader in his church, succeed in school, and when a friend needed it, act like a penguin.

Scurto, also called "Adam-Wadam" in high school, left the serious stuff to someone else. Fellow CU student and friend Weston Eggett tells me how they used to try to start trends in high school, so Adam once wore his polo backwards.

"He always tried to do things that were fun. He never tried to take himself incredibly seriously." While attending Rock Canyon High school in Highlands Ranch, Scurto also played trumpet in the marching band and was active in his school's newspaper, The Rock. His participation at St. Francis of Assisi, the Quill and Scroll Society, and Tri-M also created many lasting friendships.

"I knew from a very young age that he was the kind of person people would want to be around," father Christopher Scurto tells me. "He was not a surface friend, he was an all-in friend." After considering the many different clubs and organizations Adam joined, it's easy to see why. Adam graduated with a letter in band, honorable mention in a national journalism competition, and a 3.47 G.P.A. His work ethic might have had something to do with it.

"No matter how many times he had to try, he just kept on trying," says Archuletta. Along with trumpet, Adam also played piano, which according to his father, he "pretty much taught himself to play.

“He commits himself to it, there's no halfway or anything," he adds. Scurto carried over this passion to CU Boulder, where he began studying in the fall of 2007.

A junior in the university’s well-known Leeds School of Business, Adam also worked as a Resident Advisor and frequently helped with retreats at St. Thomas Aquinas in Boulder. But in between skiing black diamonds or dabbling on the piano keys, he still found time to keep up his friendships from before college, something not lost on Archuletta, who's known Adam for 6 years.

"Adam kept very close friends. He was very loyal."

Chris Scurto was proud of the friends that Adam brought home too.

"As a parent you sometimes look at friends and think, ‘I don’t really want them hanging out with my kid,’ and I guess I never really though that about his." Eggett sums up how his friends felt about Adam when he describes friends in middle school as usually changing or becoming "corrupted."

"Adam was always one of those kids that never changed. Overall he was a great guy. I will always cherish him as one of my best friends."

A service will be held for Adam in his hometown of Castlerock at St. Francis of Assisi. Date and time will be later determined.