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<\/p>\nCelebration of life held for Central Florida soldier who died in Morocco<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\tUpdated: 4:29 PM EDT Jun 13, 2026\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\tEditorial Standards \u24d8<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\tFamily, friends, and members of the Apopka community came together Saturday morning to celebrate the life of U.S. Army Spc. Mariyah Collington, who died last month in Morocco. Collington fell off a cliff on May 2 during an off-duty hike with another soldier, 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., before they both disappeared. Collington’s remains came home to Central Florida earlier this month. She served as an air and missile defense crewmember and started active duty in 2024, assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, according to the Associated Press. The circumstances surrounding Collington’s death remain under investigation. The First Baptist Church of Apopka was filled with prayer, singing, and people dressed in pink and black. Collington’s family remained hopeful and faithful as they spoke about her. “We have a lot of questions as to what happened and why, but we know that God never fails us,” one of the attendees said. Collington was a cheerleader at Evans High School, where she graduated in 2024. Her brother, who also wanted to join the military, reportedly left for service in late May.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tAPOPKA, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Family, friends, and members of the Apopka community came together Saturday morning to celebrate the life of U.S. Army Spc. Mariyah Collington, who died last month in Morocco. <\/p>\n Collington fell off a cliff on May 2 during an off-duty hike with another soldier, 1st Lt. Kendrick Lamont Key Jr., before they both disappeared. <\/p>\n Collington’s remains came home to Central Florida earlier this month. She served as an air and missile defense crewmember and started active duty in 2024, assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa, according to the Associated Press<\/a>. <\/p>\n The circumstances surrounding Collington’s death remain under investigation. <\/p>\n The First Baptist Church of Apopka was filled with prayer, singing, and people dressed in pink and black. <\/p>\n Collington’s family remained hopeful and faithful as they spoke about her. <\/p>\n “We have a lot of questions as to what happened and why, but we know that God never fails us,” one of the attendees said. <\/p>\n Collington was a cheerleader at Evans High School, where she graduated in 2024. Her brother, who also wanted to join the military, reportedly left for service in late May. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celebration of life held for Central Florida soldier who died in Morocco Updated: 4:29 PM EDT Jun 13,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128130,128129,168,92678,5507,1089,667,128131,17442,1210,116289,7938,128128,54605,139,141,140,128127],"class_list":["post-306612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-1st-lt","tag-apopka-community","tag-celebration","tag-central-florida-soldier","tag-death","tag-family","tag-investigation","tag-kendrick-lamont-key-jr","tag-last-month","tag-life","tag-mariyah-collington","tag-may","tag-missile-defense-crewmember","tag-morocco","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-u-s-army-spc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}