Killed on a day of celebration

It had been a good year for Austin Meyer.

The 24-year-old from Monterey County, enrolled in a twoyear automotive program at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, had become engaged. His fiancé, Dana Getreu, studies at the nearby University of Nevada-Reno. They bought tickets to the Route 91 Harvest country-western music festival in Las Vegas to celebrate Meyer’s birthday and the couple’s anniversary.

Meyer died Sunday night when Stephen Paddock opened fire on concert goers from a window of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

In one of the last photos taken of Meyer, he is seen holding a tiny glass bottle of pink Champagne and a plate of chocolatecovered strawberries. “Happy birthday,” the plate reads in chocolate icing. He is smiling.

Getreu, his fiancé, is in all of his Facebook photos. In one, he is kissing her cheek at a pumpkin patch, and her eyes are squinted from smiling so hard. In another, the couple appears to be at a fancy Valentine’s Day dinner. He is wearing a tie and she has a string of pearls around her neck. The earliest photo shows them in a car. His eyes are a vivid blue, and Getreu has her arm raised to snap the selfie.

Meyer grew up in the Monterey County town of Marina, and he was a driver for Main Event Transportation, a limousine service, the company said.

“I still can’t believe you’re gone,” Meyer’s work colleague, Chris Elliott, wrote on his own Facebook page. “I would take your place if I could. I love you so much and thank you for always being the great person you were.”

On Wednesday, officials at Truckee Meadows Community College informed students that their classmate had been killed and arranged for counselors to be in Meyer’s classes Thursday.