Track Star Presumed Dead After Falling Though Ice

A record-holding runner from the Spokane Valley is missing and presumed dead after falling through ice covering an irrigation ditch in Missoula.

Ryan Cross, 21, has been missing since Saturday morning, when he fell into the canal on the University of Montana campus.

The ditch feeds into the swollen Clark Fork River.

Missoula police reported searchers were using dynamite to break up ice on the ditch in an effort to find Cross’ body.

Cross, attending Montana on a track scholarship, was walking with a friend on or near the ice when he slipped and fell through, police said.

“The detective told us it didn’t look like a dangerous situation - that it looked like something he himself would have done,” Shannon Cross, the victim’s older brother, said Monday from his parents’ home in the Valley.

Cross graduated from University High School in 1993 and holds several of the school’s running records.

He placed second at the 1993 state track meet in both the 3,200-meter and 1,600-meter runs, and was the third-best cross country runner in Washington in 1992.

Shannon Cross described his brother as a hard-working student and dedicated runner who logged more than 100 miles a week.

“He had a great work ethic,” said Shannon Cross, 24. “He was a guy that I looked up to, and I’m the older brother.”

Debbie Cross, the victim’s mother, said people from throughout the Inland Northwest swamped her home with telephone calls when they heard of the accident.

Many people knew her son through his running, she said.

Montana track officials plan to bring the team to Spokane for the funeral, which has yet to be scheduled.

“He touched people all over,” Debbie Cross said. “Somebody was just saying last night, ‘Ryan didn’t chase rainbows - Ryan was out there making rainbows.”’

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The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Adam Lynn Staff writer Staff writer Mike Vlahovich contributed to this report.