ROANOKE, Va. – Months after the death of 17-year-old Camden Thepsimuong, his parents say the community support around their family hasn’t faded — and neither has their son’s impact. Now, they’re working to continue his legacy through a scholarship to Cam’s favorite church camp.
Cam was a William Byrd High School student who died from bone cancer just before Christmas. But the people closest to him say cancer was never the headline of his life.
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Instead, they describe a teenager known for his faith, his steadiness, and the way he handled a diagnosis most adults would struggle to face.
A memorial built rock by rock
One of the most visible reminders of Cam’s legacy is a garden filled with roughly 5,000 hand-painted rocks. Each rock is decorated with a message, image, or symbol representing something Cam loved — and together they’ve become a space where family, friends, and community members can remember him.
Cam’s mother, Charlene Thepsimuong, said the idea started while she was still in the hospital with her son.
“It actually started when I was in the hospital with Camden,” she said. "He was inpatient and someone had reached out to me that knows of him and was friends with us and had just sent me a picture and it was a picture of a rock garden and I showed that to Camden and he was like, we should do this!"
Over time, the memorial grew as more people joined in.
“I appreciate that so many people came together to paint it for him,” she said.
The rocks now serve as both a tribute and a gathering place — a way for the family to see, in a very tangible way, how many lives Cam touched.
“He never let the diagnosis define him”
Cam’s parents, Anouxa and Charlene Thepsimuong, said they are still grieving the loss of their oldest son. But they don’t want that loss to be the thing people remember most.
They want people to remember who Cam was — a teenager whose faith stayed central, even at the end.
In a video shared on social media, Cam speaks directly about that faith and what it meant to him, telling others he believed he knew where he was going after life on Earth.
His parents said that belief — and the support from their church and the broader community — helped carry them through the most difficult days.
Turning loss into a gift for other kids
Now, the Thepsimuongs are working on another way to keep Cam’s spirit present: a scholarship fund that will pay for two children each year to attend Cam’s favorite church camp.
His parents said the camp was something Cam looked forward to — and something he truly loved.
“I just know how much he loved it, how much he couldn’t wait to go to camp,” one parent said.
For the family, the goal isn’t just to remember Cam — it’s to help other children experience something that meant so much to him.
“The fact that just a kid will pretty much experience the exact same experience Camden had, that means a lot for us,” Anouxa said.
For his parents, it’s a way to do what Cam would have wanted, even though he’s not here to say it himself.
“If he was here, I think he would say this is exactly what he would have wanted,” Anouxa said.
A long-term promise
The family’s goal is to raise enough donations to support the scholarship for the next decade, paying for two children to attend each year.
They say it’s their way of giving back to the community that showed up for them — and of making sure Cam’s story continues.
In the same way the painted rocks spread across the garden, the family hopes Cam’s legacy spreads too — through kids who get the chance to go to camp, build friendships, and find encouragement in the same place Cam did.