STONEBORO

Heat stroke caused the death of a Rhodes scholar from Stoneboro who died during an Army training exercise a month ago at Fort Benning, Ga., according to autopsy results.

2nd Lt. Zachariah R. Miller, 22, was found dead at 8 p.m. July 1 while on a land navigation training exercise with the 75th Ranger Regiment Training Detachment, according to fort spokeswoman Monica Manganaro last month.

According to reports, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C., determined that Miller died of heat stroke.

The land navigation exercise began at about 9:30 a.m. July 1 and Miller was last seen alive at about 1:30 p.m., and when he failed to meet a deadline, a search crew was dispatched and found Miller's body at about 8 p.m., Army officials said a month ago.

The National Weather Service said that the temperature at noon on July 1 was 88 degrees and that the humidity was at 55 percent.

Bill Graves, a fort public affairs spokesperson and assistant editor of the fort's newspaper, The Bayonette, said Miller's cause of death was dehydration.

"It is pretty high-speed training, but they have instructions to make sure they (the soldiers) receive the fluids they need," Graves said.

Miller was valedictorian of the class of 1998 at Lakeview High School. In December, Miller was selected as a Rhodes scholar, which entitled him to study for two years at Oxford University in England, where he planned to study politics, philosophy and economics beginning in October. He had graduated June 1 as an honors graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

"It was a tragic loss," his father, Keith R. Miller, said Friday evening.

The Associated Press and the Ledger Enquirer of Columbus, Ga., contributed to this story.