Richard Lachapelle looked up at the ceiling of Renaissance Catholic High School’s sunny auditorium, then turned his eyes to the Aurora school’s Grade 12 class, the students who, until Tuesday, had walked the halls with his only child.

His voice was soft and slow as he chose his words.

“Most of you may not have known Alex,” Lachapelle said Friday, his wife standing beside him. “He left us a little bit too early.”

“In order to honour his memory, please do me a favour. Persevere and study hard; you have your whole life ahead of you.”

Alexander Roy-Lachapelle committed suicide Tuesday morning, killed by a GO train outside of Aurora station. He was 17.

Many students at Renaissance had indeed not known the young man. He was quiet, studious, had few friends. In recent years he had struggled with clinical depression, and had been the victim of bullying.

“He was judged, excluded, ignored and mocked,” Sylvain Levasseur, among a small circle of Roy-Lachapelle’s friends, wrote in an email. “A few of his friends would pull pranks on him, nothing horrible just little things.”

But Roy-Lachapelle had recently come out of a long period of darkness, his mother, Marsha Roy, said, and been buoyed by his involvement in a video contest hosted by Laurentian University.

He and a group of students had set to work on a movie showing why their school is “awesome,” as the contest describes. Their goal was to garner enough votes to win the top prize: $10,000 towards their prom.

Roy-Lachapelle took on the task of shooting and editing.

“He was filming from the top of the cafeteria,” recalled 17-year-old Jeremy Theriault, describing how Roy-Lachapelle accessed the teachers’ lounge to get shots of students from on high through a gap near the roof.

“Usually that’s where they put lighting, but he was up there, just filming,” said 17-year-old Brendon Levesque, chuckling.

Voting closed at midnight Wednesday, one day after Roy-Lachapelle’s death. Teachers and students used the time left to get the word out — asking everyone to vote in his honour, said school principal Martyne Laurin.

On Thursday, they learned they beat out a dozen other francophone schools in Ontario.

“The students and the whole community rallied to pay tribute to Alexandre,” Laurin said, just before a group of Grade 12 students was handed an oversized cheque for $10,000.

Whether or not the money will still be spent on the prom is now up to those who helped make the video; Laurentian has said the school can use it as they please. There have been calls to donate the money to the Canadian Mental Health Association, the organization the family has asked mourners to support in lieu of flowers.

Others have suggested putting part of the funds towards anti-bullying initiatives. Rejean Sirois, director of education for the French Catholic School Board central-south district, confirmed Friday that the board will be examining the issue of bullying at the school.

Roy-Lachapelle’s parents say they would strongly support a decision to use the money towards a graduation celebration.

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“I do believe that he would have wanted to have a wonderful prom,” Roy said.

Seeing his son’s peers smiling as they accepted the cheque Friday “lit him up,” Lachapelle said.

“It’s such a tragic event,” he said. “All I wish to come out of this is something positive. I don’t want to dwell in the negative; it’s not going to bring him back.”