A northwest Iowa college student died in a mountain climbing accident in Wyoming.  

Rescue workers found the body of 21-year-old Brandon Oldenkamp of Sanborn at the Grant Teton National Park in Wyoming yesterday.  Oldenkamp apparently fell over a cliff during a thunderstorm on Wednesday. 

Sixteen climbers were rescued from an exposed mountainside late Wednesday.  A park spokeswoman says all the climbers suffered injuries from lightning.  Oldenkamp’s body was found midday Thursday.

Oldenkamp would have been a senior this fall at Dordt College in Sioux Center where he was majoring in accounting.  Oldenkamp was a member of the Dordt College basketball team and was twice given honorable mention status in the Great Plains Athletic Conference.  

Dordt College president Carl Zylstra says Oldenkamp’s death is a tragedy that “stuns our whole campus.”  Oldenkamp went on the trip with the father of his girlfriend.  The college president describes Oldenkamp as a “vigorous young man” who was “in the midst of a joy-filled excursion.”

Dordt College basketball coach Ross Douma says his “thoughts and prayers go out to Brandon’s family and friends.” The coach says Oldenkamp was an “exemplary young Christian man who did his best in everything.” 

Oldenkamp was a 2007 graduate of Western Christian High School in Hull, Iowa.

(Reporting by Doug Broek, KSOU, Sioux Center)