GENEVA – A 2003 Geneva High School graduate, Raymond Allen Kaligian III, 28, died suddenly this month at his home in Houston, the result of a bizarre series of events, a family friend said.

Kaligian had been a star athlete in baseball and golf and a member of the National Honor Society while at Geneva. He graduated from the University of Illinois and was pursuing a promising career with the Phillips 66 Company as director of base oil sales. He was the only son of Ray and Bobbie Kaligian of Geneva.

Kaligian died Feb. 17 of carbon monoxide poisoning because his car's automatic starter turned on and the fumes traveled through a central vacuum duct that was dislodged, allowing the exhaust to go into his bedroom on the second floor, said his friend and Geneva School District 304 board member Michael McCormick. Kaligian's dog, a beagle-shepherd rescue named Willie, was sleeping next to him and also died, McCormick said.