how did kooper davis of hobbs die
His home and away jerseys, his school backpack and a school photograph were also displayed. Its about lockdowns and the teens who are struggling and sometimes unable to deal with it. Lujan Grisham would announce that schools could reopen for all ages on Feb. 8, but at maximum 50% capacity, which meant only a couple of days per week, and under the condition that they would close if cases rose again. Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020. Its been stressful at times, said the district superintendent, Patrick Torres. The best explanation for this is that the only thing Cooper has left in life is Brand. Like others in Hobbs, he was not unprepared for such calls: There had been at least six suicide attempts by Hobbs students during the pandemic, according to district officials. Denver City is a humble-looking town, with a Family Dollar and no Walmart, but oil-and-gas revenues had allowed it to build a new high school two years ago. Stringent guidelines for reopening schools in New Mexico meant students in Hobbs have experienced the pandemic differently than students across the border in Texas. "No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldn't have happened," said his father, Justin Davis. When you put most of your things into achieving scholastic, and achieving athletic, and those things arent available to you, your whole life, every goal you wanted to achieve is being taken away from you, he said. (For example, yesterday can be changed to last week, and Portland, Ore. to Portland or here.), You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. New Mexico as a whole had lost 3,145 people, two-hundredths of a percentage point higher than Texas in per capita terms. As the hot Southwestern summer dragged on, Kooper Davis and his teammates placed faith in that possibility. Instead, he set his sights on Stanford, which excelled in sports and academics, and which he had visited for another football camp. Menu penelope loyalty quotes. His teammates would be allowed to practice only in small pods, which left them mostly doing just weightlifting sessions and agility drills. Kooper was born in Hobbs NM on August 9, 2003 and spent his childhood in Lovington before moving to Hobbs with his family, Father Justin Davis, Mother Heather Davis and his younger siblings, where he was an honors student, athlete and student leader. Travis was born in 1972 in Hobbs to Patrick Collins and the late Marla Bood Weber. 877-845-6272. I think the big question we all have is why, and we will never know the reason why, his mother, Katrina Fuller, told an Albuquerque TV talk show in July. The district, which offered daily and weekly tallies of cases on its website, determined that the vast share of transmissions seemed to be happening outside school, as research was finding to be the case in other places, too. No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldnt have happened, he said. And then Kooper had died, a week later. Or to put it more broadly: How much of normal youth should they be asked to sacrifice? It was hard not to be impressed by the ingenuity, the determination to try to make things work, even now. If it would prevent another Kooper, then definitely, yes, she said. This had only been confirmed for her as she saw how poorly the remote learning was going: not only did most students leave their cameras off, some wouldnt even turn on their microphones. Abe died on Nov. 30, at 49, before she could see him. Good, she said, because Kooper would be out of the question.. We need to be back on the field. He missed football so much that, on some Friday evenings, he headed across the state line to Texas to watch a game. All Rights Reserved. For Hobbs and the rest of Lea County, population 70,000, that meant no more than five new cases per day in the whole county. This startled me, but not nearly as much as what she told me next: that soon after her own illness, her partner of 18 years, Abe, had died of what had strongly resembled COVID-19, though his initial test had come back negative. Davis, who lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, says she lost her son to suicide just weeks after. After the death of junior Cooper Davis on Sunday, Aug. 29, the school has taken the opportunity to recognize the issues that come with the increasing availability and abuse of drugs. Hobbs High School Hobbs, NM Football. If you like our stories, mind sharing this with a friend? Kooper was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian. We would like to offer our sincere support to anyone coping with grief. She took the coronavirus seriously, she said. My last visit in Hobbs was to the home of Jennifer Espinoza, Koopers favorite teacher. Go deeper Andrew Solender He played basketball, too, but football had his heart. She had come to bring her teenage daughter to an outdoor kids workout session that had been arranged hastily a few days earlier, after the news of Koopers death. The novel coronavirus, by contrast, has hit the elderly the hardest. Sports could start a few weeks after that, with masks and without fans. For my older son, the baseball meant frequent traveling to tournaments out of state, in Virginia and Pennsylvania. If hes thirsty, give him water, and his interpretation of it: No matter who it is, no matter who the person is, if theyre in need, help them. I cant see them, I cant even hear them, she said. Finally, the nationwide surge in gun violence since the start of the pandemic has included, in many cities, a sharp rise in crimes involving juveniles, including many killed or arrested during what would normally be school time. The boys respective high school and rec-league baseball seasons were canceled last spring, but their club teams were still playing through the summer and fall. All he knew was that Kooper had been upset about the closures. The futures they had been working toward arent options anymore.. Frogxit: Harry and Meghan get what they asked for, Knock it down: Albuquerque tries novel approach to crime fighting, California high-speed rail costs going up and projected ridership going down, When you go after the Queen Consort, you'd best not miss, California's drought situation has improved dramatically, Not so fast: CA NOT going to shutter nasty old Diablo Canyon nuke plant, Don't expect Biden to drop by East Palestine. And Kooper was a great student of the quarterback position; he had the intangibles, his coaches said. This confounded Hobbs school officials, especially because they could see open schools across the border in Texas. Kooper did not know him well, but went out to join friends who had gathered to mourn him. James Davis's passing at the age of 79 . Is Biden leaving wiggle room in his decision to run for re-election? Its honestly ridiculous. And it was so hard for someone of Landons age to grasp time; the six weeks of closure seemed like forever. After being in Denver City, things seemed emptier than ever at the Hobbs high school complex in normal times, the center of communal life in Hobbs. Nationwide, meanwhile, President Bidens push to reopen schools was explicitly leaving out high schools, leaving millions of teenagers with the likelihood of remote learning through the end of the school year. But at some point in ways that werent evident to those around him, Kooper was overwhelmed. She had swung the other way on reopening. . Our sons, now 16 and 13, have had fully remote learning in their Baltimore public schools for nearly a year now. On the way back, hed pick up some Burger King breakfast for his two younger sisters, ages 11 and 5. Students wore masks in the hallways and administrators did contact tracing for positive cases of coronavirus, but everything else went pretty much as usual, including sports. In prior pandemics where the technology was not available for remote work or remote schooling, lockdowns and social isolation were not as extreme and did not last as long as what weve lived through this past year. To send flowers Then the screen played a long loop of photos and videos of Kooper: wearing a Halloween costume, holding his younger sister on the beach, wearing braces, buried in sand, grinning behind Justin and Heather as they kissed at their wedding, attending a Dallas Cowboys game, singing in a school musical, holding a newspaper with his name in a sports story, sitting on a hay bale, holding the newborn twins, wearing a tux for a dance. United Realty, LLC Happy Hump Day!! Kooper Davis, a football and basketball player then took a turn on the mike with Strickland, who plays football, wrestles, and runs track & field, set to close things up. Artesia loves you, said the bus from Artesia. That is what teens are driven to do: to grow self-esteem and a strong sense of who they are. With school and so much else closed off to them, and daily life mostly limited to the home, the little bit of self-directedness they had before is gone. Speaking about the same . Lt. Its baffling to us to figure out why he didnt come to us., Suicide is ultimately an unfathomable act, but Justin said he was sure of one thing. The next morning, I met Katrina Fuller, the mother of 11-year-old Landon, in the windswept parking lot of a strip mall. Fingers crossed, and I believe in you that we can get this done.. Kooper and his classmates would take their courses at home using an online program, with barely any contact with teachers or each other. One of the few aspects of this terrible pandemic to be grateful for is that it has taken a vastly lesser toll on children and young adults than its major precursor of last century, the flu pandemic of 1918-1920. If we could have them all week, this is the best place for them to be.. As many of these experts have noted, the cost of restrictions on youth has gone beyond academics. I get the fear level, but we see models that show it can be done. The states had taken very different approaches with regard to their young people, but ended up in almost identical places as far as their coronavirus tolls. The parking lot was jammed with oversized pickups, and the sanctuary was standing room only. Ive heard it all, Fuller said. In New Mexico, Gov. Its taken a lot of time and effort, but our kids are getting instruction face to face.. ), Statewide in New Mexico, the restrictions resulted in zero high schools or middle schools reopening anywhere in the state. On some Tuesdays and Thursdays, hed head to school for an afternoon session with the other quarterbacks, learning how to read defensive coverage. Consequently, Davis and Glover petitioned the Supreme Court of . Koopers teammates on the Hobbs High School football team. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. Its honestly ridiculous. Kooper was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian. No contact sports are going to be permitted this fall, she said. Doctors are still uncertain whether children who survived that syndrome will experience long-term heart issues or other health problems. On Oct. 16, Kooper shared a grim claim from a state representative on his Facebook account, which he seldom used: The New Mexico Athletic Association reports there have been 8 student-athlete suicides since March 20., Kooper looked so alone and hunched over as he worked that Heather one day posted a picture of him online to share his struggle with others. Kooper already had a highlight reel, and it included some nice-looking throws, but it was from his sophomore season on the junior varsity team. Please contact. How much distress was invisible to parents? If you share republished stories on social media, wed appreciate being tagged in your posts. And I want his happiness more than I want mine., Pastor Kinney spoke last. So that was the only thing that I can imagine what was going through his head at that time., Hobbs is heavily conservative. He was hoping his grades and his performance on the field would be enough to get him into a good college. Before the event broke up, someone encouraged all of Koopers classmates to get together on stage for a group photo. Initially, practices with up to 9 kids were allowed, which meant they could do some drills, but in October, the state reduced that to four students per coach. Because, I mean, were losing them. She said her friends, parents, job and soccer practice have helped her cope. Lost hope. Some players stopped showing up. Kooper often said that suddenly the two biggest loves of his life . Kooper procrastinated, as usual, but now also found it harder to focus when deadlines hit. Other tolls would be harder to assess, in a year of so much damage done, in so many ways. Clockwise from top left: Cutter Cruz, Colton Graham, Easton Kuykendall and Caleb Hedrick. Melanie Blanchard, Jason Scott, and Donna Sanchez, are here at our office and ready to help you buy your ( View post) Feb 15 This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc. Whatever it takes, said Rick Martinez, the principal. He liked his teachers, and they liked him. I chatted with some of Koopers teammates, asking them how they were handling remote learning. Its hard to imagine the pain this family is dealing with and the questions about what they might have done differently that will probably be with them for the rest of their lives. Kids have been paying a big price for the lockdowns and for some kids its just too much to handle. You cant republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. The Fifth Circuit affirmed Davis and Glover's convictions and sentences. They allowed only for elementary-school instruction, and required a district to stay below an average of eight new cases per day per 100,000 residents over a two-week period. Thats what you think when youre 16: Nobody is dealing with what Im dealing with. Not to mention, he said, that the closures have simply given kids too many empty hours. When the youth minister at church once apologized for missing one of his high school games, Kooper reassured him that it was okay, that he did not depend on an audience: I play for myself, he said. She said she had started hearing from many other families around the country whose kids were struggling, including a mother whod discovered her 6-year-olds plans for how to end her own life. I had an open relationship with my son, he said. Do we fear everyone coming back and possibly getting COVID, or do we fear losing another student more?. Shivering in the parking lot, Fuller told me about Landon, who had just wanted to be everyones friend. He was the sort, she said, who always went over to any kid sitting by themselves on the playground. Justin, as I would soon learn, is a large and taciturn man, but he was eager to talk, and urged me to come to New Mexico to learn more about what Kooper and his friends had been through.
