(December 27, 2006)--A memorial service for the climber found dead on Oregon’s Mount Hood is started at noon Wednesday at the church he attended in Dallas.
Funeral services were held Wednesday in Dallas for 48-year-old Kelly James, a Dallas landscape architect and veteran climber whose body was recovered near the summit of Mount Hood one week before Christmas.

Investigators think James dislocated an arm and was forced to stay in a snow cave while fellow climbers Brian Hall of Dallas and Jerry "Nikko" Cooke of New York City went for help. Hall and Cooke remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead.

Services for Kelly James were held at Fellowship Baptist Church in Dallas.

James leaves behind a wife and four children.

After the service James will be buried in a private ceremony.

A New York radio station interviewed his brother, Reformed Theological Seminary president Frank James, from Dallas on Tuesday.

He said that when he told family members last week that the body had been identified, Kelly's 12-year-old son Jack responded that God could raise his father from the dead.

Frank James says they all agreed, but accepted amid tears that God had taken Kelly home instead.

Hopes that the other two missing climbers might be found alive have faded.

Frank James says the monogrammed ring that was used to identify his brother has been given to Kelly James' oldest son, who shares his father's initials.

More News >>Sports >> Weather >>