SACRAMENTO, Calif — After a recent break from work, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens e-mailed his family in Northern California that he’d arrived back in Libya.

“He just got back to Libya a few days ago,” said his brother, Tom Stevens, 46. “He sent an email saying he had a lot of work waiting for him, so he’d have to e-mail more later.”

And then came the tragic news. On the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the 52-year-old Stevens and three other embassy staff members were killed in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

His stepfather, Robert Commanday, told CNN that Stevens loved the Libyan people and was passionate about helping the country recover from its revolution.

A day after Stevens died, his family and friends remembered him as a dedicated career foreign service officer and a smart, amiable, unflappable man with a gift for caring about the world around him.

He loved playing tennis, and he played it around the globe, using the tennis court as a way to get to know other diplomats, his brother said. He loved running, and he ran everywhere. “He even ran on the dangerous streets of Tripoli,” said Tom Stevens.

Locally, some remembered Chris Stevens as the boy who attended Pioneer Elementary and Emerson Junior High in the city of Davis, where he joined the ski club and played saxophone in the band.

— The Sacramento Bee