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. 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 and his classmates would take their courses at home using an online program, with barely any contact with teachers or each other. Now Koopers death was making her reconsider again. My biggest fear is, you pull the rug on these kids, he said. Its that years video that recruiters will look at, and that years grades that admissions officers will scrutinize. 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. . They mostly watched video lessons on their own, using an online curriculum called Edgenuity. In the same week as Lujan Grisham announced her reopening plan, I made another check of the coronavirus toll in Hobbs Lea County. 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. As the school year started, she had been among the majority of teachers who were willing to return to classrooms. Hobbs High School Hobbs, NM Football. For more information about canonical metadata, You cant edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. 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. Sad, its so sad. He was the first to come, and last to leave. In late April, six weeks into the springs pandemic lockdowns, the community had been stunned by the suicide of an 11-year-old boy, Landon Fuller, an outgoing kid who loved going to school and had, his mother said, struggled with the initial lockdowns. 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. In August, they were allowed to hold practice sessions capped at nine players each not enough for a real practice, with offense running plays against defense, but better than the July sessions, which had been capped at five players. Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020. He called back five minutes later to say that yes, he had gotten the name right. 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. Allow us that opportunity.. AddThis Utility Frame.  These funds will go to future scholarship funds, football boosters and basketball boosters.

. Other tolls would be harder to assess, in a year of so much damage done, in so many ways. A group of students from Hobbs, including Kooper, held a rally at the football stadium to call for the reopening of school. To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Kooper Davis please visit our,

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. Posted on . Koopers father, Justin, during an altar call at church in February. This meant they would mostly just be lifting weights, never mind that this often meant having many players in the weight room at a time (albeit in four-player pods), seemingly a riskier proposition than a regular practice outdoors. But he knew he needed to work on his agility, which is one reason he took the practices so seriously. Making it especially tough, he said, was the nearby contrast. At about 1 p.m., Kooper had texted Sam on Snapchat: Love you, bro. Love you, too, Sam wrote back. 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. This confounded Hobbs school officials, especially because they could see open schools across the border in Texas. 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. Theres too much hurt, Espinoza said as I headed out of her house after our conversation. People looked at us, like, Who is this kid and why is he not playing?. High school football practice has resumed, with some restrictions, in Hobbs. Its not necessarily that youre experiencing abuse, though some may be. Researchers and mental health professionals had come to the conclusion that, as David Brent, a University of Pittsburgh psychiatry professor, put it to me, One thing thats protective against it is connection to school and family and peers. But New Mexico schools and team sports didnt start up in the fall thanks to strict state regulations: After initially barring any schools from reopening in August, the state released gating criteria for districts that wanted to resume in-person instruction in the fall. But he also knew how adolescents had the natural tendency to magnify troubles. He was an amazing big brother and had very close relationships with his younger siblings. He was hoping his grades and his performance on the field would be enough to get him into a good college. The school capped attendance at its field, and required people to register for tickets online. Whatever it takes, said Rick Martinez, the principal. He wouldve had an adult standing next to him, a coach saying, Kooper, quit being a dummy. The only way he could make sense of it, Justin said, was that for about fifteen seconds of Koopers life, he let his guard down and the devil came in and convinced him of something that was wrong. His only solace was seeing the effect the loss had on Koopers classmates, who were, he said, turning their lives over to God, sending letters to the governor, and generally spreading word of his sons goodness far and wide.I believe God needed him now, he said. (Kooper had limited contact with his biological mother.) But at some point in ways that werent evident to those around him, Kooper was overwhelmed. Speaking about the same . Malena Moreno and her boyfriend, Pedro Gavin Garcia, were friends of Koopers from Lovington, New Mexico, where Kooper lived until he was 12. So many kids are turning to the wrong things to fill a void. If you share republished stories on social media, wed appreciate being tagged in your posts. positivism constructivism or interpretivism and pragmatism how did kooper davis of hobbs die. In New Mexico, Gov. Ive heard it all, Fuller said. Obituary. He liked his teachers, and they liked him. Kooper was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian. Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020. In Prince Georges County, Maryland, a Washington, D.C., suburb where school buildings have remained closed, seven teenagers were charged with murder in just the first five weeks of this year. If normally lighthearted Kooper, despite a loving family and natural gifts, had been struggling so much, what about all the others? Explore the latest videos from hashtags: #hobbsnm, #porterdavishomes . Katrina Fuller in the field where her son died. 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. You cant republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. It had been a terrible month, and it had left her uncertain about the best course for the Hobbs schools and sports teams. 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. Kooper Davis hated online school and he really hated that there was no football his junior year. 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. 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. The weekends is where theyre getting it, said principal Rick Martinez. Celeste Sloman is a photographer and director based in New York. 2017-2023 Tribute Archive. 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. And there are the astonishingly deluxe high school football stadiums. 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. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc. Theyre going to be taking care of us one day, and this is how were treating them? He noted that one student at the October protest had carried a sign that read, Im able to vote in your next election.. He was hoping his grades and his performance on the field would be enough to get him into a good college. 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. The next day, a Monday evening, Kooper and his classmates held a demonstration for reopening school and school sports, one of several across the county that day. The coronavirus pandemic has been not only a health catastrophe, but an epic failure of national government. Melanie Blanchard, Jason Scott, and Donna Sanchez, are here at our office and ready to help you buy your ( View post) Feb 15 Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as theyre published. Koopers friend Zailor Lopez has noticed a change in her friends: I feel like the pandemic has kind of brought on a lot of anxiety for us kids.. I get the fear level, but we see models that show it can be done. When he is finally able to return she is on her death-bed, surrounded by her own family. And Kooper was a great student of the quarterback position; he had the intangibles, his coaches said. It was hard not to be impressed by the ingenuity, the determination to try to make things work, even now. James Davis's passing at the age of 79 . He was a straight-A student and the quarterback for the Hobbs high school football team. They were among the strictest in the country. She said her friends, parents, job and soccer practice have helped her cope. He had won over his ninth-grade English teacher, Jennifer Espinoza, with his willingness to engage on the. 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. 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. He was a straight-A student and the quarterback for the Hobbs high school football team. A key developmental task of adolescence is autonomy-building, said Jessica Schleider, an assistant psychology professor at Stony Brook University. Christian Center Church4024 W. College Lane, Hobbs NM 88240Tel: 1-575-392-5166, 2023 Chapel of Hope. If you like our stories, mind sharing this with a friend? Recommend Kooper's obituary to your friends. The next morning, I met Katrina Fuller, the mother of 11-year-old Landon, in the windswept parking lot of a strip mall. Whats going on with those other kids?. Its trash, said one, Kevin Melissa. Heather Davis' son, Kooper, died in December of last year, Southwest News Service (SWNS) reports. The event was in gross violation of the state rules on indoor gatherings, which were supposed to be capped at 40 people, but no sheriffs deputy was about to intervene on this day. Its crazy, said another, Carter Johnson. I know my kid isnt the only one hurting, she wrote. Hobbs wasnt even holding synchronous classes online for older high schoolers. Her sister Claire is a sophomore at New Mexico State University. The people of Hobbs had for months been barred from letting their kids go to school or letting them play football and soccer. Kooper Davis came across the border once with a friend to see a game in Levelland, northeast of Denver City, and another time with his father, Justin, to see a game in Seminole. 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. Kooper had always gotten straight As, despite a tendency to leave big assignments to the last minute. Kooper procrastinated, as usual, but now also found it harder to focus when deadlines hit. After I chatted with Sam, I walked with his father back to his office. how did kooper davis of hobbs die steve dunn katu salary steve dunn katu salary. 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.