Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020.
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.
Kooper was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian.
He was an amazing big brother and had very close relationships with his younger siblings.
He is survived by his father and mother, Justin and Heather Davis, his biological mother Sarah, his sister Kynlee, sister Kharley, brother Kroy, and brother Kohen, brother Tayton and sister Emara, multiple grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, teachers, administrators, and coaches.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in memory of Kooper to be made to Christian Center Church. Davis planned to put together a highlight real of his games which hed use to attract attention. Most notably, it gave local school districts leeway in deciding whether to open for in-person instruction in August, and in conservative West Texas, many districts seized the opportunity to do so, for all grades, all the way up through high school. He charmed classmates and teachers alike with his playful ebullience. All of the teachers returned. The Texas Classroom Teachers Association had nowhere near the sway of unions in other states. I found an empty space to stand in the back. No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldnt have happened, he said. If you share republished stories on social media, wed appreciate being tagged in your posts. Its crazy, said another, Carter Johnson. Meg Gleghorn, left, is a sophomore at Hobbs High School and has chosen to continue with remote learning, while many of her peers have opted to return to part-time in-person learning. Already a member? I want him to tickle the babies while I go eat, she said. Two Hobbs men were killed Tuesday morning in a rollover crash outside of Carlsbad and a third Hobbsan was injured. They should circulate less or will become vectors. But the video wouldnt load right, so several students went onto the field to give impromptu speeches before the 175 or so people who were gathered there. can stop at any time. A study in the March 2021 issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, of people aged 11 to 21 visiting emergency rooms found significantly higher rates of suicidal ideation during the first half of 2020 (compared to 2019), as well as higher rates of suicide attempts, though the actual number of suicides remained flat. He was hoping his grades and his performance on the field would be enough to get him into a good college. For student-athletes aspiring to play in college, junior year is key. It was unnerving to watch: lots of people, few masks, no windows. The school capped attendance at its field, and required people to register for tickets online. Still, the news of an 11-year-old taking his life after riding his bike to a field near his house had the power to shock in Hobbs. Since Im a junior, college is starting to cross my mind, and without this essential year of learning, I feel completely unprepared for college. His parents began to notice how much the disruption and uncertainty was wearing on their normally buoyant son. Its that years video that recruiters will look at, and that years grades that admissions officers will scrutinize. After repeatedly broken promises for his sports teams and school life to return in any shape whatsoever, high-school junior and promising athlete Kooper Davis of Hobbs also died by suicide. We should be more careful with kids, wrote Andy Slavitt, a Medicare and Medicaid administrator under President Barack Obama who was named senior advisor for President Joe Bidens coronavirus task force, in a Jan. 3 tweet. He is survived by his father and mother, Justin and Heather Davis, his biological mother Sarah, his sister Kynlee, sister Kharley, brother Kroy, and brother Kohen, brother Tayton and sister Emara, multiple grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, teachers, administrators, and coaches. It has, instead, been left largely up to parents to monitor their children for signs of declining mental health as they determine whether to allow their kids to return to college or summer camp, to have a friend over, to go to the mall. Kooper was vying against three other players for the starting quarterback spot. His arm strength had improved in the past year, so much so that his best friend Sam Kinney, a wide receiver, jokingly complained about the passes starting to hurt. And Fuller told me about the difficult weeks of the initial lockdown in the spring, when both she and her husband were feeling the stress of a loss of income. I chatted with some of Koopers teammates, asking them how they were handling remote learning. Kooper procrastinated, as usual, but now also found it harder to focus when deadlines hit. There were signs that mental health was on his mind. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 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. The theory is theyre reacting to modern society, she said of the Aboriginal children. I want him to come in from football practice and tell me how practice went. Ive blamed myself., She had done a lot of reading on youth suicide since Landons death, and had learned that rates were especially high in indigenous communities, like the Aboriginal community of Australia. As the story points out, the junior year is critical for students hoping to get admission to a good school based on sports. Kooper had always gotten straight As, despite a tendency to leave big assignments to the last minute. The result of the abdication of federal leadership in 2020 was an atomization of decision-making that affected the lives and well-being of millions of people. I dont care how good a kid you are, if you have so much time on your hands, youre going to find mischief., He told me how dearly he hoped the state stuck to its plan for a football season, truncated though it was. Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020. He was thinking about Stanford because it was a top academic school with a good football team. He was a kid who had everything, and this is where were at, said Justin. Koopers been Justins rock. She recounted all their morning chats together, after his workout sessions. Koopers teammates on the Hobbs High School football team. If any of yall know anyone unable to leave their homes, I am willing to wait in line and pick up their groceries for them, or even run simple errands. Lets respect the ones who wanna stay home and respect the ones who are ready to go back!!. Her sister Claire is a sophomore at New Mexico State University. For a while, Kooper went to do some of his schoolwork at the Starbucks near the local Walmart, just to get out of the house, but then it closed down again when state restrictions tightened further. This has posed a conundrum from early in the pandemic: How much should children be prevented from doing outside the home, to keep them from contributing to community transmission of a highly contagious virus? Obituary. Were losing their leadership. 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. Allow us that opportunity., Kooper Davis had always thrived in school. 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. Meals cooked by friends covered the island in the kitchen. Coach Stevens got the news from the school principal that afternoon. His parents also believed social isolation played a role in his death: I think the big question we all have is why, and we will never know the reason why, said Katrina. And these were the grades that colleges were going to be looking at. Hobbs High School football player Caleb Hedrick. 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. Lt. 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. That was the last he heard from his friend. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. A four-person band with two backup singers played Another in the Fire, a stirring song by the Australian worship band Hillsong United: There was another in the fire/ Standing next to me/ There was another in the waters/ Holding back the seas, Stevens was one of several coaches and trainers who spoke via a recorded feed played on the big screen over the stage. 877-845-6272. your email below for our complimentary daily grief messages. He isn't the only one that was crushed by sacrifices he should never have been forced to make. That earlier pandemics victims tended to be in the prime of life, with mortality peaking around age 28. Menu penelope loyalty quotes. He grinned. Football went forward, too. Browse Hobbs local obituaries on Legacy.com. Theres a difference between a stressor that makes your life unpleasant and intolerable and a stressor that takes away good things, he said. Its been hard to cope, period, said Jordyn Titus, a first-year student at Hobbs High School. Or to put it more broadly: How much of normal youth should they be asked to sacrifice? As he left, he told Sam, in typically unabashed fashion, Love you. Love you, too, Sam responded. Please pm me if you or anyone you know could use a helping hand.. AddThis Utility Frame. His teammates would be allowed to practice only in small pods, which left them mostly doing just weightlifting sessions and agility drills. My family was among those facing these decisions. Consequently, Davis and Glover petitioned the Supreme Court of . The boys and their parents wore their masks inside the motels; at games, the parents spread out in the bleachers or on the sidelines. Everyone tells us to keep positive, but its been almost a year. Go deeper Andrew Solender Kooper Davis hated online school and he really hated that there was no football his junior year. Heather Davis' son Kooper was 17 years old when he died by suicide last year. (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. In addition to the CDC reporton the rising share of visits to emergency rooms by teenagers in distress, a University of Wisconsin survey of more than 3,000 high school athletes during the summer found that more than two-thirds reported high levels of anxiety and depression, 37% higher than past studies. Share a memory of Kooper Davis. Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever. I know Ive still got another year, but time goes faster than you really think., He continued, I just believe we should be here at school and we should be here playing football. I knew he was pretty brave, but didnt know he was that brave, Sam said later. On my final day in Hobbs, I made the short drive across the Texas border to Denver City. Its hard to be positive.. The story takes place in Hobbs, New Mexico, a small city that sits right up against the border with Texas. She was heartened by the launch of the exercise class but knew the town needed to come up with more, just to let them know that we love them and theyre so wanted and theyre not alone. She started to cry. 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. Some afternoons, hed head over to the church his family belongs to, Christian Center Church, which is led by Sams father, Jotty Kinney, who set up a small weight room for the boys to use. For more information about canonical metadata, You cant edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. It had been a terrible month, and it had left her uncertain about the best course for the Hobbs schools and sports teams.