"No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldn't have happened," said his father, Justin Davis. I fear for all the kids, he said. If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. I arrived in Hobbs two days later, just in time for the memorial inside Christian Center Church. After my meeting with Fuller, I went back to the church. 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. These are kids without mental health issues, with good families, kids that are loved, she said. 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. Hawaii, one of the states least affected by the pandemic, put its threshold at 360 cases over a 14-day period. That was what the kids heard from the adults in charge, and they tried to believe it. He called back five minutes later to say that yes, he had gotten the name right. Kooper procrastinated, as usual, but now also found it harder to focus when deadlines hit. My biggest fear is, you pull the rug on these kids, he said. 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. 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. 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. Posted on . Kooper Davis took his own life on December 07, 2020. In reading that, she had drawn a connection to American children who were being forced into a whole different way of life during the pandemic. As for teachers, there was no option: Their job was in the classroom. Pray for Hobbs, said the bus from Eunice. 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. Allow us that opportunity.. I was there to meet with Coach Stevens, who had also been wracking his mind trying to think of clues he hadnt picked up from Kooper. High school football practice has resumed, with some restrictions, in Hobbs. But they said they were thinking of all the other kids in another way, too. Nationwide, deaths by suicide in the 10-to-24 age group increased by half between 2007 and 2018, a trend that has been linked to multiple factors, from the growing availability of guns to the spread of smartphones and social media. Koopers father and his stepmother Heather, who had been together since Kooper was nine, had considered transferring him to a school in Texas, as other families were doing. There are the pump jacks scattered across the plains, nodding up and down with metronomic regularity.  These funds will go to future scholarship funds, football boosters and basketball boosters.

. The building has good ventilation, and enough space that it wasnt hard to spread desks to allow for 4 to 6 feet between them, even in a class of 20 or more. 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. No other kid in this day and age called, he said. Its taken a lot of time and effort, but our kids are getting instruction face to face.. But when he heard the name, Stevens was stunned. Koopers been Justins rock. She recounted all their morning chats together, after his workout sessions. 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. Heather came to the stage with Koopers sisters. 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. Its crazy, said another, Carter Johnson. In the pandemic year of 2020, though, the two sides of the state line might as well have been in different hemispheres. An entire generation between the ages of 5 and 18 has been effectively removed from society at large, wrote Maryland pediatrician Lavanya Sithanandam in The Washington Post. All of our moods changed, she said. Kooper Davis had always thrived in school. 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. Suicide is ultimately an unfathomable act, but Justin said he was sure of one thing. They mostly watched video lessons on their own, using an online curriculum called Edgenuity. Now, here in July, we are seeing the rise of the so-called Delta variant strain of COVID-19. 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. Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. 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. 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. They were even considering sending Kooper and Heather to Atlanta to live near one of the coaches hed trained with. Davis, who lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, says she lost her son to suicide just weeks after. And it was so hard for someone of Landons age to grasp time; the six weeks of closure seemed like forever. There would be no actual games. The mother ensured the tree stayed the same way the way her son had decorated it and therefore, she wrapped it up with cellophane. Whats happening is that were taking away high points in peoples lives that give them reward and meaning. 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. He started playing organized football at age 5 and could not get enough of it. I know my kid isnt the only one hurting, she wrote. There are the frequent memorials of another sort, to the victims of vehicle accidents. Those weekends remain for me some of the only redeeming moments of an awful year. We know that participation in sports and a connection to school can have a profound protective effect., That social connection has been attenuated in the parts of the country that have largely shuttered school buildings and associated activities. This confounded Hobbs school officials, especially because they could see open schools across the border in Texas. Sports could start a few weeks after that, with masks and without fans. Whatever it takes, said Rick Martinez, the principal. 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. 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. Not only that, were losing years of their educational development., Kinney said his brother-in-law, also a pastor, had become seriously ill with coronavirus, and he did not doubt its danger. Overall, though, the fall was going so relatively well that many students who had chosen the remote option at the outset decided to come back to school, to the point where only about half a dozen were still learning at home. Stringent guidelines for reopening schools in New Mexico meant students in Hobbs have experienced the pandemic differently than students across the border in Texas. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact. No products in the cart. In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations in memory of Kooper to be made to Christian Center Church. ), Statewide in New Mexico, the restrictions resulted in zero high schools or middle schools reopening anywhere in the state. Koopers teammates on the Hobbs High School football team. No, they said. Consequently, Davis and Glover petitioned the Supreme Court of . The futures they had been working toward arent options anymore.. My last visit in Hobbs was to the home of Jennifer Espinoza, Koopers favorite teacher. If high school teams arent playing football, there is no football being played. 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. He was at a loss over what he and Heather might have missed. And Im willing to keep my teammate and classmates in line, minding whatever rules, just so I can be back here doing the stuff I love., Mental health experts struggle to identify a precedent for the challenge this pandemic is producing for many Americans. If normally lighthearted Kooper, despite a loving family and natural gifts, had been struggling so much, what about all the others? Kooper Davis went to meet Jesus on Monday, December 7, 2020. All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. The stage was dominated by balloons in black and yellow, the Hobbs High colors, and large white letters and numbers, aglow with lights, that spelled KD 10, Koopers jersey number. 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. NBC. So honestly when do we stand up for our kids?? Were losing their leadership. In the same week as Lujan Grisham announced her reopening plan, I made another check of the coronavirus toll in Hobbs Lea County. 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. Man, this sucks, he told his teammates. Plenty of parents continue to worry for their childrens health amid the pandemic. Some precautions were taken, such as umpires calling balls and strikes from behind the mound instead of behind the catcher at home plate. We just have to weigh the good and the bad. That was the last he heard from his friend. Please pm me if you or anyone you know could use a helping hand.. In "New Amsterdam" Season 3, Dr. Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher) contracted COVID-19, with much of the early part of the season revolving around his illness and the attempts by the hospital staff . 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 was very involved in and loved being part of his church family as well as being a Christian. His home and away jerseys, his school backpack and a school photograph were also displayed. Its not necessarily that youre experiencing abuse, though some may be. A group of students from Hobbs, including Kooper, held a rally at the football stadium to call for the reopening of school. But thats me being selfish. Well, were introducing them to a new society here, and theyre rejecting it.. To avoid dense crowds, the band had held three performances, with several hundred people attending each. Discover short videos related to kooper davis hobbs nm on TikTok. He was thinking about Stanford because it was a top academic school with a good football team. Obituary. He didnt text you or put it on Snap. 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. Kooper was despondent. The median age for COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. is about 80. 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. Sam was lifting weights with another friend in the small workout room that his father had set up. This memorial page is dedicated for family, friends and future generations to celebrate the life of their loved one. More than just scholastic considerations were driving this. 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. You cant state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublicas work. In New Mexico, mental health experts say, the factors also include high rates of depression on Native American reservations, and rural isolation in general. When the pandemic swept through the country last year, Texas was quick to reopen schools while New Mexico shut down schools and sports. On Sunday mornings, Kooper would be back at the church for his youth-group service and to help lead sessions for the younger kids. On the way back, hed pick up some Burger King breakfast for his two younger sisters, ages 11 and 5. 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. 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. 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. Read the full story. 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. Coach Stevens got the news from the school principal that afternoon. Kooper Davis hated online school and he really hated that there was no football his junior year. 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, Statewide in New Mexico, the restrictions resulted in zero high schools or middle schools reopening anywhere in the state. A simple Google search will bring up plenty of others. If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources: Alec MacGillis covers politics and government for ProPublica. He asked, Are you sure you got the name right? The principal said he thought he had, but that hed double-check with the schools designated police officer. 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. There were signs that mental health was on his mind. 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, 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. 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? 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. There were no friends to cajole, no teachers to charm. Every weekday morning except Wednesday, he got up at 6:30 a.m., drank a protein shake, then drove to McDonalds for more breakfast, before arriving at school at 7 a.m. for a weightlifting session. And I want his happiness more than I want mine., Pastor Kinney spoke last. Share a memory of Kooper Davis. It had been a terrible month, and it had left her uncertain about the best course for the Hobbs schools and sports teams. Menu penelope loyalty quotes. Anyone who fit that definition had to quarantine at home, initially for two weeks, eventually only for 10 days, in line with CDC guidelines. All Rights Reserved. Hobbs High School Hobbs, NM Football. I have no doubt that God is not done using Kooper, he said. Malena Moreno and her boyfriend, Pedro Gavin Garcia, were friends of Koopers from Lovington, New Mexico, where Kooper lived until he was 12. 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. Abe died on Nov. 30, at 49, before she could see him. Watch popular content from the following creators: cl(@chelsleigh2020), mckayla(@mckayla..pierce), angelroseeee12(@roseeeeeeee_0), Lily DeSciscio(@lilymdesciscio), taylorholdridge99(@egdirdlohrolyat22) . 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.