Memorial paddle out held at Silver Strand Beach for boating victim Kirra Drury

Surfers held a memorial paddle out on Saturday for a young Ventura woman killed two week ago in a Labor Day weekend boating collision.

Hundreds of Kirra Idella Drury’s friends joined family members in the surf at Silver Strand. They celebrated the life of the 24-year-old who grew up by the beach and attended Hollywood Beach Elementary School, just down the street from her grandmother’s namesake restaurant called Mrs. Olson’s in Oxnard.

Drury was also the captain of her volleyball team at St. Bonaventure High School. Many of her friends grew up competing in her uncle’s Surf Rodeo in Ventura.

Drury was found 3 days after the speed boat she was a passenger in crashed head-on into another boat on the Colorado River over Labor Day weekend.

Drury’s friend Raegan Hietzig, a recent California State University Channel Island graduate, has yet to be found. Her uncle and another woman also died in the accident.

Hundreds of surfers and people on shore tossed Gerbera daisies into the waves.

Jack Anderson said people held hands after forming a circle with their surfboards.

“We were splashing, we were yelling, we love Kirra,” said Anderson.

Many of them caught waves before returning to shore.

They were invited to sign a surfboard decorated with Kirra’s nickname “Stargirl.”

The paddle out was also followed with a picnic on the sand.

A memorial service will be held at Mission Church in Ventura next Saturday.