ManiFest is their brainchild.

Byline: PEOPLE By Mark Baker The Register-Guard

Mani Shimada was an only child. And he is most likely the only person, living or otherwise, to have an annual "ManiFest" held in his honor.

The parents of the 16-year-old Eugene boy, who lost his life to bacterial meningitis on Sept. 26, 2003, say their tradition of throwing a hard rock concert - featuring mostly young "heavy metal" and "death metal" bands like the ones their son appreciated - at the WOW Hall is an annual manifestation of their son's wild and free spirit.

It's a chance to "transform this horrible negative thing into something positive," says James Fox, Mani's stepfather, who adopted him the same year he died.

"Your grief and sorrow can get on top of you and crush you down if you're not careful," he says. "But your heart gets bigger, and you become more compassionate, when you realize you have an opportunity to make a difference."

For Mani's mother, Miya Shimada, coping with her son's death means teaching yoga, meditation, Buddhist studies and her native Japanese at the Quaker-influenced Eugene alternative high school, Wellsprings Friends School, that her son attended. Miya Shimada was hired the spring after Mani's death when the school needed to replace its Japanese teacher.

"There are two choices when this sort of thing happens to a mother," Miya Shimada says. "I could sit and cry. Or I could do something positive."

The annual concert was her idea, something she came up with during her son's memorial service at the school three years ago this month.

The first ManiFest, "A Celebration and Reflection on Life, Death and Transformation," focused on "openly expressing feelings of loss and looking deeply into death and the ways it transforms us." Last year's theme, "Lotus Grows in a Pit," was based on the Buddhist idea that "a beautiful flower flourishes in a muddy place."

This year's theme, "Feed the Demon," plays off the idea that our demons come from within us, not from the outside. They come in the form of negative emotions, challenging relationships and addictions that must be faced and transformed into allies.

Organizing ManiFest helps the couple, and Wellsprings students, deal with their continuing grief. It also raises about $1,000 annually for the school, a place where Mani seemed to finally find himself, where he felt comfortable after struggling in mainstream public schools.

Many of the students who attend Wellsprings are misunderstood, Fox and Shimada say. Many dress in all black, as Mani did. Many have tough exteriors, as Mani did.

"The toughest-looking kids are often the sweetest," Fox says. "They have to dress tough to protect themselves."

Mani Shimada died within 24 hours of exhibiting flu-type symptoms. About five days before his death, he attended a concert at the WOW Hall - where he often went with friends to see shows - during the weekend of that year's Eugene Celebration. Another teenager, Christina Norton, then a student at South Eugene High School, also contracted bacterial meningitis, a rare and often deadly infection of fluid in the spinal cord and around the brain, after attending the same concert. It was the only place public health officials could place them together.

Also hospitalized, Norton survived.

The Thursday after the show, Mani was playing basketball with friends from school about noon when he said he didn't feel well. He went home. His parents put him to bed and he got up about 11 p.m., disoriented and thrashing around the family's south Eugene home.

They took him to the emergency room at Sacred Heart Medical Center about midnight. The diagnosis came quickly, but there was nothing doctors could do. He was gone within a couple of hours.

Fox and Miya Shimada were bewildered. They drove home.

Raised in Japan as a Buddhist, Shimada has relied on her faith - which teaches that right thinking and self-denial of worldly things enable the soul to become enlightened and thus reach nirvana - and prayer to get through her pain and to see Mani's life and death in philosophical terms.

"Everybody dies," she says. "And I think the important thing is not how he died, but how he lived."

She and Fox found purpose in something their son loved: music. Mani liked to play guitar and write songs, and hoped to combine his computer skills and music knowledge into some sort of career one day.

Sky Studach, the 22-year-old lead singer of Tormentium, one of four bands who will play Manifest III this weekend, is impressed by Fox's and Shimada's approach. "I don't think it's too often you run across parents who can see eye-to-eye with a project like this, and deal with the community of us `metal children,' ' he says.

Studach helped organize this year's show by inviting the other three bands - including Exhausted Prayer of Los Angeles, who will play for free - and using his graphic design skills to create this year's ManiFest poster.

Like other alternative schools in Oregon, Wellsprings gets 80 percent of a student's funding from the school district he or she transfers from, says Dennis Hoerner, Wellspring's principal. The rest of Wellsprings' budget comes from fundraising.

"They have tremendous energy," Hoerner says of Miya Shimada and Fox. "They are a wonderful example of how to deal with grief."

MANIFEST III: FEED THE DEMON What: Third annual hard rock concert to benefit Wellsprings Friends School and honor former student Mani Shimada. Where: WOW Hall, West Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Street When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday Admission: $5 Memorial fund: You can contribute to the Mani Shimada Memorial Fund by sending a tax-deductible donation to Wellsprings Friends School, 3590 W. 18th Ave., Eugene, 97402. The fund helps pay for needed items at the school. For more information, go online at www.wellspringsfriends. org/manishimadafund.htm JAMES FOX AND MIYA SHIMADA Who are they? The parents of Mani, the 16-year-old Wellsprings student who died suddenly of bacterial meningitis in 2003 after attending a show at the WOW Hall. "Tea for Teens": A program developed by Miya Shimada to help teenagers through the often difficult transition of adolescence. She has a special "tea room" in her home where she leads traditional Japanese tea ceremonies based on the living art of "Chado," which brings people together to celebrate and appreciate one another and the world around them. Call 485-0076 for more information. The Metallica connection: When Mani Shimada was just 6, Fox, his stepfather, let him listen to the heavy metal band's "Ride the Lightning" album. Mani was hooked. "His whole face lit up," Fox recalls. "He had an epiphany." Miya's bio: Born in Japan, she lived and studied in India during the 1970s, gave birth to Mani in Australia in 1987 and moved to San Francisco in 1989. She has lived in America ever since. She received master's degrees in Buddhist studies and information science in the 1990s from the University of Michigan, where she met her husband. James' bio: He was born in Northern California and grew up in the Bay Area; the Vietnam War and student revolts at UC-Berkeley and San Francisco State informed his early years. As a student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he became fascinated by "Plato and the madness of Rome," leading to a classics degree. He later studied classics at the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York City, where he received a degree in library service. Today he is head of Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Oregon.