The schools in Denver City, population 5,000, had shut down amid the coronavirus lockdowns in the spring of 2020, but there wasnt really any question about whether the 1,700-student district would reopen schools in the fall. 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. We just have to weigh the good and the bad. A lot are stuck in environments they didnt choose. All rights reserved. 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. It was hard not to be impressed by the ingenuity, the determination to try to make things work, even now. They had tried to make things as nice as possible in those weeks, with an online birthday party for the two kids, and an Easter egg hunt. That was the last he heard from his friend. Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever. 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. Theres no reason parents should put up with any further delays. His home and away jerseys, his school backpack and a school photograph were also displayed. Sam was lifting weights with another friend in the small workout room that his father had set up. 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. 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. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. He started playing organized football at age 5 and could not get enough of it. Thanks for signing up. For Kooper, autumn brought no relief. Heather came to the stage with Koopers sisters. Students were attending five days a week, without the hassle of hybrid schedules used in much of the country. But thats me being selfish. Junior year is key for students, like Kooper, hoping to play football in college. He called back five minutes later to say that yes, he had gotten the name right. As many of these experts have noted, the cost of restrictions on youth has gone beyond academics. New Mexico has consistently had one of the highest youth suicide rates in the country its roughly twice the national average and preliminary state statistics would later show the 2020 rate as unchanged. Kooper did not know him well, but went out to join friends who had gathered to mourn him. After my meeting with Fuller, I went back to the church. Consequently, Davis and Glover petitioned the Supreme Court of . Koopers been Justins rock. She recounted all their morning chats together, after his workout sessions. You cant sell our material separately or syndicate it. He was an amazing big brother and had very close relationships with his younger siblings. This toll has led a growing number of epidemiologists, pediatricians and other physicians to argue for reopening schools as broadly as possible, amid growing evidence that schools are not major venues for transmission of the virus. On Friday nights, high schools still played football, with fans in the stands. He attended Mills Elementary school before moving to Roswell NM, where he graduated from Goddard High School in 1991. For more ways to keep up, be sure to check out the rest of our newsletters. These funds will go to future scholarship funds, football boosters and basketball boosters. In the same week as Lujan Grisham announced her reopening plan, I made another check of the coronavirus toll in Hobbs Lea County. If you share republished stories on social media, wed appreciate being tagged in your posts. All Rights Reserved. Katrina Fuller in the field where her son died. 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. Instead, he set his sights on Stanford, which excelled in sports and academics, and which he had visited for another football camp. If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources: Alec MacGillis covers politics and government for ProPublica. It was unnerving to watch: lots of people, few masks, no windows. That earlier pandemics victims tended to be in the prime of life, with mortality peaking around age 28. The next morning, I met Katrina Fuller, the mother of 11-year-old Landon, in the windswept parking lot of a strip mall. This proved a godsend, a way for the boys to keep being active outdoors and around other kids, doing something they loved to do. But he also knew how adolescents had the natural tendency to magnify troubles. Justin and Heather Davis with Kooper, then a first-year student. Explore the latest videos from hashtags: #hobbsnm, #porterdavishomes . There were many kids in the audience, and some were wearing raspberry-colored shirts with Kooper 10 written on them. NBC. Theres a difference between a stressor that makes your life unpleasant and intolerable and a stressor that takes away good things, he said. Lunch was still served in the cafeteria, but it never got crowded because many students went into town for lunch, at the McDonalds drive-through or elsewhere. The initial response is not as difficult as something thats stressful, but over time, the anhedonia, the loss of pleasure, is going to drive you down a lot more., Even before the coronavirus arrived, teen mental health was a cause for growing concern. The buses had condolence messages painted on the windows: We are here for you, read the writing on the bus from Portales. He liked his teachers, and they liked him. The next morning, Dec. 7, Kooper went to his Monday weightlifting session. The challenge was less the lack of money than the lack of people to administer it: the state education department has only a single behavorial health coordinator, Leslie Kelly, who was struck by the rising concern about youth suicide during the pandemic given that the problem had existed for years in New Mexico. A growing body of evidence suggests that younger children are the least likely to transmit the virus, but that as children grow older, their capacity for transmission approaches that of adults. 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. She specifically tells him that there is nothing left for him there . 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. how did kooper davis of hobbs die hanging on y ligaments hanging on y ligaments. From Hobbs to the Texas towns of Seminole and Denver City is a half-hour drive next door, by the standards of the vast Southwestern plains. She had been writing and calling elected officials and state bureaucrats and finally, with the help of the local state senator, Gay Kernan, had gotten the state to provide some training for local teachers in recognizing youth mental health troubles. Even if he was wrong or going in the wrong direction, he wasnt afraid to put his thoughts out there. It was a great class in general, she said: Those kids fed off each other. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity. Weve got districts 30 miles away doing it safely, associate superintendent Gene Strickland said. Katrina, a prenatal educator, had been trying for months to draw attention to the mental health needs of Hobbs young people. The story takes place in Hobbs, New Mexico, a small city that sits right up against the border with Texas. But at some point in ways that werent evident to those around him, Kooper was overwhelmed. As it was sinking in with Kooper and his classmates that school would remain remote for the rest of the fall, they got word in early October of an additional setback on the sports front. Her grandfather recently died of COVID-19. well-documented fall-off in student academic performance, deaths by suicide in the 10-to-24 age group, If youre republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our. For high school junior Kooper Davis, whose family lives 10 minutes west of the border, this meant no school and no football. Through the entirety of the movie his primary drive is to return to Earth to be with his daughter. Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you. Man, this sucks, he told his teammates. Davis, during an October demonstration to reopen schools In December, Davis took his own life; the third Hobbs teen to do so in the last three months of 2020 alone. No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldnt have happened, he said. Kooper started heading off to quarterback camps and private training in Atlanta, New Orleans and Tucson, among other cities hoping to better his odds of getting to play in college, an aspiration that became more feasible as he sprouted to 6 feet, 4 inches tall, ideal for throwing over linemen, if only he could get his agility and coordination to catch up with his height. This didnt keep many large urban districts in the state from starting the school year with remote learning. We would like to offer our sincere support to anyone coping with grief. There always seems like theres something new to cry about.. Michelle Lujan Grisham, took one of the most aggressive lockdown stances in the country, and issued stringent guidelines for school reopening, so stringent that Hobbs was allowed to bring back only a sliver of its students for in-person instruction. People looked at us, like, Who is this kid and why is he not playing?. Read the full story. Anyone who fit that definition had to quarantine at home, initially for two weeks, eventually only for 10 days, in line with CDC guidelines. Its not necessarily that youre experiencing abuse, though some may be. No other kid in this day and age called, he said. We have official accounts for ProPublica on. Students could choose a virtual option, but only a few dozen of Denver Citys 492 high school students took it. 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. He would, in general, be getting to enjoy the experience of being Kooper Davis, a well-liked kid in a small city where the admiration flowed even from the youngsters he helped out at church, one of whom, a 9-year-old boy, was overheard gleefully reporting to his father that Kooper Davis knew his name. He was thinking about Stanford because it was a top academic school with a good football team. (The mass exposure did not lead to any reported local outbreaks.). They eagerly did so, several dozen of them bunched together, beaming for the camera. 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. The city of Hobbs, population just under 40,000, sits on the New Mexico side, as tight to the border as a wide receivers toes on a sideline catch. 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. You can send your sympathy in the guestbook provided and share it with the family. Christian Center Church4024 W. College Lane, Hobbs NM 88240Tel: 1-575-392-5166, 2023 Chapel of Hope. 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. (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. But he knew he needed to work on his agility, which is one reason he took the practices so seriously. As the school year started, she had been among the majority of teachers who were willing to return to classrooms. Whats happening is that were taking away high points in peoples lives that give them reward and meaning. 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. No, I like it!. The only thing that I was able to find was in his journal, was that he had wrote that he was going mad from staying at home all the time and that he just wanted to be able to go to school and play outside with his friends. Man, this sucks, he told his teammates. Lets respect the ones who wanna stay home and respect the ones who are ready to go back!!. They would come out with amazing answers. Kooper and Sam Kinney ribbed her about her tendency to lose her phone and took daily attendance for her. From the citys eastern edge to the Texas line is barely more than two miles. 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. 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. 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. Her sister Claire is a sophomore at New Mexico State University. The mother ensured the tree stayed the same way the way her son had decorated it and therefore, she wrapped it up with cellophane. The younger one would ask why he couldnt get McDonalds, which she preferred, on the way back, and hed explain that traffic made it easier for him to do them in this order. I fear for all the kids, he said. For them, the primary release from the hours staring at the laptop screen would be sports, and for us, the answer was clear: My wife and I would let them play. 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. 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. But Denver City and nearby small cities in West Texas opened schools. Lujan Grisham announced in July that football and soccer would be prohibited for the fall season. He had been away from Hobbs at the time, working an oil-field job in Odessa, Texas, and a co-worker he had shared a truck with later tested positive. Whats going on with those other kids?. You cant state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublicas work. Were losing their leadership. And unlike in many other, more Democratic parts of the country, the citys school administrators had the support of many teachers when it came to reopening: A survey in late summer found more than 70% of teachers in favor of in-person instruction. Junior year was everything: He would be vying for the starting QB slot on varsity and taking a fistful of Advanced Placement courses. But Kooper hated virtual school. Lost hope. Some players stopped showing up. Now, here in July, we are seeing the rise of the so-called Delta variant strain of COVID-19. Martinez said hed be glad to have Kooper and that he was welcome to join one of their four-person practice pods that very day. This memorial page is dedicated for family, friends and future generations to celebrate the life of their loved one. Messages run for up to one year and you 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. Later that day, he put up another Facebook post, his first since the one in October: With these tough times going around, I know there are many of those in need, and I want to give back to my community, he wrote. Artesia loves you, said the bus from Artesia. Justin, who works for a company that services oil-field equipment and runs a lawn care business on the side, noticed the reaction his tall, athletic son was getting in . In late January, Gov. Over the course of the fall semester, about a dozen of the 70 staff members in the Denver City school missed time for quarantine, mostly after testing positive themselves, forcing the district to find substitutes no easy task, but not insurmountable. He shot to fame in the latter half of the 20th century and was an essential component of any and all of the jazz movements that took place at the time. Despite the cold, two dozen kids, most in their early teens, had come out to the parking lot and were now doing various kickboxing exercises spaced apart and with masks on under the guidance of some martial arts instructors. If it would prevent another Kooper, then definitely, yes, she said. As the story points out, the junior year is critical for students hoping to get admission to a good school based on sports. 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. All he knew was that Kooper had been upset about the closures. The median age for COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. is about 80. His teammates would be allowed to practice only in small pods, which left them mostly doing just weightlifting sessions and agility drills. Kooper procrastinated, as usual, but now also found it harder to focus when deadlines hit. Football went forward, too. Those weekends remain for me some of the only redeeming moments of an awful year. The closures have also inhibited young peoples striving for independence, youth mental health experts say. 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. Doctors are concerned about possible increases in childhood obesity no surprise with many kids housebound in stress-filled homes while addiction experts are warning of the long-term effects of endless hours of screen time when both schoolwork and downtime stimulation are delivered digitally. Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. But the districts push to reopen was rebuffed by the state education department. They were even considering sending Kooper and Heather to Atlanta to live near one of the coaches hed trained with. As the pandemic carried through the summer, worrisome signals started appearing across the country. New Mexicos response last year was the opposite. Kooper Davis's passing at the age of 17 on Monday, December 07, 2020 has been publicly announced by Chapel Of Hope in Hobbs, NM .Legacy invites you to offer condolences and share memories of Kooper in You are free to republish it so long as you do the following: Heather Davis comforts Madasyn Culver after a youth church service in Hobbs, New Mexico in late February. Like Texas, we have to learn to live with it, he said. There were counselors on hand, as well as Pastor Kinney, Sams dad. Cooper's family hopes to use his story to . But the primary concern from a public health standpoint has been the role that children and young adults might play in transmitting the disease to others. They were required to wear masks in the hallways or while moving around a classroom, but many teachers allowed them to take their masks off at their desks, judging the spacing sufficient, though the teachers kept their own masks on. He would be in school if he wasnt dead, she said. You cant go to sporting events, you cant see your friends, you cant go to parties. He was a kid who had everything, and this is where were at, said Justin. The novel coronavirus, by contrast, has hit the elderly the hardest. High school football practice has resumed, with some restrictions, in Hobbs. The only thing that I was able to find was in his journal was that he had wrote that he was going mad from staying at home all the time and that he just wanted to be able to go to school and play outside with his friends. 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. 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. Abe died on Nov. 30, at 49, before she could see him. Allow us that opportunity., Kooper Davis had always thrived in school. Hobbs Municipal Schools had an enrollment of about 10,000 students last year, but are down around 10%, loosing around 1,200 students this year, according to enrollment numbers compiled by Hobbs Assistant Superintendent for Data and Assessment Rene Cantu. For a lot of people, the stressor that COVID represents is one that takes away good things. These are kids without mental health issues, with good families, kids that are loved, she said. You cant use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements. Karyme Beltran has also struggled with the pandemic restrictions at Hobbs High. Menu penelope loyalty quotes. He was hoping his grades and his performance on the field would be enough to get him into a good college. Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). At the microphone, Kooper introduced himself, then said, I play football and basketball and those sports make up a big part of my life, and when Im not here every day doing something with those sports, honestly, I feel really lost in life. All of the teachers returned. How much distress was invisible to parents? The parking lot was jammed with oversized pickups, and the sanctuary was standing room only. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact. joe and the juice tunacado ingredients; pickleball courts brentwood; tornado damage in princeton, ky; marshall county inmate roster; 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. Please contact. More resources had belatedly started pouring into the state: a $10 million federal grant for school-based mental health services, plus $500,000 in CARES Act funds. Two days later, the town learned of another life lost: an 18-year-old who had graduated from Hobbs High that spring took his life at a local park after receiving a medical discharge from the Navy. Doctors are still uncertain whether children who survived that syndrome will experience long-term heart issues or other health problems. He was a straight-A student and the quarterback for the Hobbs high school football team. Kooper was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian. More than just scholastic considerations were driving this. He had won over his ninth-grade English teacher, Jennifer Espinoza, with his willingness to engage on the works they were reading: The Outsiders, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird., He was very opinionated about why a character did this, or whatever something meant, Espinoza said. Posted on . The smiles were jarring in the context of a memorial service until one remembered the broader context: It was the first time they had all gotten to be together since March. I reached Justin Davis on the phone that Saturday, after learning of Koopers death from a mother in northwestern New Mexico whose daughter had also struggled with the absence of school and sports. Davis, who lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, says she lost her son to suicide just weeks after. 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. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as theyre published. Legacy invites you to offer condolences and . In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in memory of Kooper to be made to Christian Center Church. 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. On Sunday, Dec. 6, as semester finals were getting underway for school, Kooper was at church as usual, dressed as a baby for a monthly skit he and Sam did for the little kids. Its about lockdowns and the teens who are struggling and sometimes unable to deal with it. When he is finally able to return she is on her death-bed, surrounded by her own family. Im glad we care about this now, but our state was high pre-pandemic, Kelly said. Around 8 a.m. Tuesday, New Mexico State Police personnel investigated a double fatal, single-vehicle crash on New Mexico State Road 31 at about mile post 19, east of Carlsbad, in Eddy County. 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. There were other challenges, such as the time in August when a player on the girls volleyball team tested positive and the school made the decision to shut down the team for two weeks, just in case another player had been exposed. If I had read that before, I wouldnt have thought that he was planning on taking his own life because I think were all feeling a little crazy right now.. His natural high spirits had carried him through his lifes primary challenge to date, his parents breakup when he was a small child. He liked his teachers, and they liked him. Well, were introducing them to a new society here, and theyre rejecting it.. The day after that, Wednesday, a fleet of empty school buses arrived at the high school from other towns, one from as far as Clovis, 130 miles away. Heather Davis' son Kooper was 17 years old when he died by suicide last year. For my older son, the baseball meant frequent traveling to tournaments out of state, in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In the pandemic year of 2020, though, the two sides of the state line might as well have been in different hemispheres. James parents said there were no obvious signs that their son was struggling. They didnt want to talk., But then she herself had gotten the virus she wasnt sure where and its severity had hit home, even before her partners death. The Texas Classroom Teachers Association had nowhere near the sway of unions in other states. That meant all they could really do was lift weights: Kooper was despondent. The theory is theyre reacting to modern society, she said of the Aboriginal children. Funeral Home website by. Texass response to the coronavirus was freewheeling. But the players ended up just wanting to go lift weights together. I seen a lot of disappointment, he said. That night, I went to meet with Koopers father and stepmother at their house, which sits out on the edge of town, near a small cattle farm. 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. On Friday nights, high schools still played football, with fans in the stands. 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. The CDC has also recorded about 2,000 cases of an inflammatory syndrome that has afflicted some children after they contracted the virus, resulting in about 30 additional deaths. On some Tuesdays and Thursdays, hed head to school for an afternoon session with the other quarterbacks, learning how to read defensive coverage. And these apologies are just some of the last words that loved ones will ever hear as they die alone.. If high school teams arent playing football, there is no football being played. KOOPER DAVIS OBITUARY. I want him to tickle the babies while I go eat, she said.