LANGLEY — One smile did it all.

Getting into trouble; getting out of trouble. Making new friends, keeping old ones.

A crowd of more than 100 — family, friends, South Whidbey High School students and graduates — gathered in the sanctuary at South Whidbey Assembly of God Church Thursday to remember the life of Charles “Mack” Porter III.

The memorial was the first of three for the young men killed in an early morning car crash north of Clinton on Nov. 12. A service for Rob Knight, 22, was scheduled for Friday at Trinity Lutheran Church in Freeland, and a memorial for Marcel “Mick” Poynter, 20, will be held early next week in Langley.

Porter, 19, grew up in Southern California but moved to Whidbey Island for his last year of high school.

Todd Parrick said he raised Porter as one of his own.

“He was a son to me,” Parrick said, adding that he became a brother to the Parrick brood of Jake, Dillon, Brenna and Hunter.

Parrick remembered the big dreams that Porter has as a kid, how he decided he wanted to be a Navy SEAL when he was 13.

“The boys worked out every day together, they ran the mountains, and swam in the aqueduct,” he said.

Parrick recounted one day out mountain biking with his son, Jake, but three miles up the mountain, Dillon and Mack decided they were going to run to the bottom, then swim across the aqueduct and wind up just two blocks from home.

When Parrick got to the house, the pair hadn’t made it back yet. Ninety minutes later, after Parrick’s wife Julie asked where the two had gone, he decided to go look.

As it started to get dark, Parrick went to the aqueduct and found his two boys still on the other side.

“I said, ‘Get over here!’”

The boys jumped in. A few minutes later, they explained what took them so long.

“Julie told us we’d get sucked under and get chewed up! We were afraid to swim across!” Parrick recalled.

But Porter was now barefoot, and had to tie T-shirts around his feet for the rough walk home.

Parrick remembered the sight with a laugh. While they were trying to get up the courage to swim across, Porter decided to throw his shoes across first. They made it half way before plopping into the water, and the quick current whisked them away.

Those were brand-new shoes, too, Parrick chuckled.

“We have a lot of good memories,” he said. “We’ve laughed a lot, we’ve cried a lot.”

“I’ll see Mack again someday,” Parrick added. “I look forward to giving those boys a hug again, sooner than later.”

Dillon Parrick remembered when Porter was a super skinny 11-year-old, weighing in at not much more than 80 pounds. They were on the same football team together, and he recalled the day that Porter played David to a gridiron Goliath.

“He was going up against a huge monster of a 12-year-old,” Parrick recalled, and someone who probably outweighed him by 100 pounds.

Time after time, Porter was knocked down. Each time, he’d get up, straighten his helmet, and try again.

The coach finally told him to give it a rest before he got hurt.

But with a big grin, Porter kept going. He hit again, and again, and again, until the bigger player was too tired to go on anymore.

“He couldn’t handle Mack anymore,” Parrick recalled.

“Mack had heart,” he said.

And more than his fair share of “dumb ideas,” Parrick said.

One time when they were taking a shortcut home across a golf course, Porter turned to Parrick and asked, “Want to go streaking?”

“I looked at him like I was appalled. ‘No way, Mack! What if someone sees us?’”

Didn’t matter to Porter, though.

“He strips off his clothes and starts running across the golf course,” Parrick recalled.

“It looked like he was having so much fun, I took off my clothes and started running too!”

Porter grew up in Palmdale, Calif. and went to Desert Christian High School before he moved to Whidbey for his senior year.

Cory Soto, his next door neighbor on Whidbey, remembered when he first met Porter and they went with a group of friends to Double Bluff.

While Soto was standing with others and enjoying the view, rocks started to whiz by. He turned around to see Porter chucking rocks at anything and everything; the water, sea gulls, whatever moved.

“Whoa, dude, you can’t!” Soto yelled at him. “This is Whidbey Island, man! You can’t do stuff — people get mad!”

And when Soto put up his hand as if to say “Stop,” Porter smacked it dead center with another stone.

“And it hurt so bad. And I was so angry,” Soto recalled.

He then looked at Porter, only to get his trademark smile in return, and Soto was soon smiling, too.

That mischievous Porter grin was everywhere Thursday.

Between two large, heart-shaped wreaths made of white and red roses, dozens of photos were on display during the memorial, illuminated by the glow from nearly 100 small candles.

There were pictures of Porter playing football for the Falcons, hanging out with friends, blowing out candles on a birthday cake, getting hugs on graduation day. Another photo showed Porter with his head wrapped in masking tape. Another, a group shot of the Santa Clarita Valley Young Marines’ Class of 0702 in San Pedro, Calif.; that’s Porter in the back row, center, standing at parade rest, with a chest full of ribbons. Just below, an older photograph, of a young boy carrying a skim board back from the surf.

Mike Berry, a youth pastor at Christian & Missionary Alliance Church in Langley, recalled the teen with an infectious grin and a zest for life.

“He had a huge heart, and a huge amount of love for those around him,” Berry said.

He then read a poem written by Ellie Whitcomb about the victims in Saturday’s terrible tragedy.

“We really miss your smiles, boys, those beautiful smiles you shined for us,” Berry read.

“I wish it wasn’t you boys, it’s made all our lives so rough.

We can’t wait to be with you again boys,

We’ll see you soon enough.

Until the day we meet again,

I know you’ll be looking out for us.

Until the day we meet again boys,

We love you three so much.”