First, his friends recalled the great lengths he'd go to try to make them smile when they were having a rough day.
Then his teachers and school administrators spoke of his unusual maturity for a 15-year-old and the meticulous way he wore his school uniform and tended to his flattop haircut.
But when Demario Bailey's mother rose to talk to the more than 200 sophomores at Johnson College Prep, she focused not on her slain son but more on her concern for the safety of his classmates, promising she'd drive as many as she could to the Englewood neighborhood school and extracurricular activities.
"My baby didn't make it to the end of the tunnel," said Delores Fitzpatrick, standing in front of the crowded but silent cafeteria. "...That's all I ask for. Get these babies back home to their mothers (because) I wouldn't wish this on nobody."
Her son was fatally shot during an attempted robbery Saturday afternoon as he walked with his twin brother through a long, dark passage under a viaduct along 63rd Street on their way to basketball practice at Johnson College Prep.
Just a couple hours after a Cook County judge set stiff bonds for the final three of the four teenage suspects, Bailey's friends, classmates, family and teachers gathered at the school to remember him on what would have been his 16th birthday.
The gathering started off as a celebration for not only Bailey but also his twin brother, Demacio. The walls were decorated with bright posters, festive balloons floated on the stage and cases of cupcakes were stacked on a table in the back of the room.
But the event quickly turned into an emotional memorial service as the students, mostly sophomores like the two Bailey brothers, remembered how their friend touched their lives.
"He was a very good friend to me and to everybody," said Davion Ramsey, 15, who paused as he choked back the tears and tried to compose himself. "When I heard the news, it just tore me apart. I couldn't do nothing but cry."
Demario stood out at his school in part because both he and his brother towered above many of their classmates, the students said. The two boys stuck together and delighted in being twins. Sometimes Demario would take off his glasses in hopes his teachers would mix him up with his identical twin.
Yet he also showed a compassionate side. When he heard that any of his classmates were struggling, he made sure he'd reach out and try to brighten their spirits.
"We got to be strong for him," Devon Davis, a 16-year-old junior, told the students. "They thought this would tear us apart, but it's brought us closer."
Then Davis addressed both Demario's brother and mother.
"You lost one brother, but you have gained so many more," he said. "Ma, I promise you, (Demario) lives through me."
Rachel Terry, who was Demario's academic adviser, recalled how she often turned to the teen for advice even though she was the adult.
Then Terry began speaking as if she was talking directly to Demario. Her face reddened with sadness and tears flowed down her cheeks.
"Thank you for being a loving friend, a loving brother and a loving son," she said. "You will be missed. But you will be remembered all the time."
Several times during the approximately 75-minute ceremony, teens in the room became inconsolable with grief and had to be taken outside.
As the students sang gospel songs in Demario's honor, his mother and twin brother broke down crying. She wailed as she held her son close, the two rocking back and forth.
Moved with emotion, Demario's grandmother, Bernice Bailey Fitzpatrick, 62, shouted from her seat, too.
"Thank you Lord for 15 years, thank you for 16," she said through her tears. "You blessed me. And I'm still running this race," she said, drawing applause.
When it was her turn to speak, Delores Fitzpatrick told the students that she had been a young mother who became emotionally overwhelmed after having two babies at once. The boys' father was killed in October 2000 when they were toddlers. That left her a single mother with three young babies at home.
"I thought my life was over," she said.
But the twins made the journey easy.
"I am nothing without my boys," she said. "...Demario and Demacio made me happy everyday..."
Fitzpatrick told the students to love each other as much as they could.
"It means so much to me that y'all loved on my babies," she said. "The ones that did this did it because nobody loved them."
To honor her son's life, Fitzpatrick promised to drive students to school to ensure their safety. She hopes she might one day use a van with an image of her son's face airbrushed on the side. But for now, she'll drive them in her own personal car.
"I just want to get the babies home," she said. "If they want to do something for me, just help me get these babies from their house, to cheerleading, to basketball, to football..."
Twitter: @lollybowean