Associated Press

WYOMING, Ohio — About 50 volunteers spent Wednesday morning tying blue and white ribbons along the road leading from the high school to a cemetery in the Ohio hometown of the 22-year-old college student who died this week after being detained for nearly a year and a half in North Korea.

Wyoming officials say the celebration of life for Otto Warmbier will be Thursday morning in the Wyoming High School auditorium. The service is open to the public, but not the media.

The Hamilton County coroner is still trying to determine the cause of Warmbier’s death Monday, less than a week after his return in a coma. The University of Virginia student was accused in January 2015 of trying to steal a propaganda banner at his hotel while visiting North Korea and was later convicted of subversion.

An organizer working with volunteers didn’t want them to speak to reporters as they decorated the route in the school’s colors for the final trip of the adventurous student, fondly remembered at his high school as popular, smart and active in sports.

Earlier this week, Jay Klein, 19, a rising sophomore at DePauw University, recalled joining the Wyoming High soccer team as a freshman and getting to know Warmbier as one of the friendliest, most spirited seniors playing.

“Walking around the hallways at school, you don’t really expect seniors to come up to you as a freshman,” Klein said. “He was one of the only guys who would come up to me and ask me how my day was doing and that kind of thing.”

Klein said fellow players looked up to him on and off the field, admiring his light-hearted spirit, his passion for the game and his love for travel.

Molly Cain, 40, met Warmbier when he coached her son, Robby, 12, at the Wyoming swim club. At the time, Robby was shy, Cain said, and Otto helped her son come out of his shell.

“Once he started working with Otto, he couldn’t wait to go,” Cain said. “It was like, ‘Not only do I get to swim, I get to swim with someone I totally look up to who’s older than me, and he’s cool, and he’s fun, and he thinks I’m great!'”

She said he was in tears after Warmbier died.

Warmbier’s family objected to an autopsy, so the Hamilton County coroner’s office only conducted an external examination of his body. Medical records have been reviewed and his condition was discussed extensively by treating physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was hospitalized after his June 13 return.

Wambier’s parents cited “awful, torturous mistreatment” by North Korea. Doctors last week said he suffered a “severe neurological injury” of unknown cause.

He was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years in prison with hard labor. His family said it was told he had been in a coma since soon after his sentencing.

Fred Warmbier, father of Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia undergraduate student who was imprisoned in North Korea in March 2016, speaks during a news conference, Thursday, June 15, 2017, at Wyoming High School in Cincinnati. Otto Warmbier, serving a 15-year prison term for alleged anti-state acts, was released to his home state of Ohio on Tuesday in a coma. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

In this March 16, 2016, file photo, American student Otto Warmbier, center, is escorted at the Supreme Court in Pyongyang, North Korea. Warmbier, an American college student who was released by North Korea in a coma last week after almost a year and a half in captivity, died Monday, June 19, his family said. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin, File)