Travis was born in 1972 in Hobbs to Patrick Collins and the late Marla Bood Weber. Justin and Heather Davis with Kooper, then a first-year student. 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. And Kooper was a great student of the quarterback position; he had the intangibles, his coaches said. There would be no actual games. Football Recruiting / New Mexico / Hobbs, NM / Hobbs High School / Kooper Davis. 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. They eagerly did so, several dozen of them bunched together, beaming for the camera. 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 mornings, Kooper would be back at the church for his youth-group service and to help lead sessions for the younger kids. He started playing organized football at age 5 and could not get enough of it. Allow us that opportunity.. So many kids are turning to the wrong things to fill a void. She said her friends, parents, job and soccer practice have helped her cope. Recently, Fuller told me, she had received an envelope in the mail from the New Mexico education department. 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. He attended Mills Elementary school before moving to Roswell NM, where he graduated from Goddard High School in 1991. Share a memory of Kooper Davis. Read the full story. New Mexico as a whole had lost 3,145 people, two-hundredths of a percentage point higher than Texas in per capita terms. The median age for COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. is about 80. For high school junior Kooper Davis, whose family lives 10 minutes west of the border, this meant no school and no football. 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. The parents ran the political gamut: liberals from Baltimore, conservatives from rural towns in Pennsylvania. 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. 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. Man, this sucks, he told his teammates. 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. Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever. 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. This all started before the resumption of Major League Baseball and other professional sports, and it sometimes seemed as if our tournaments were the only serious competitive sports happening in the country, a sort of speakeasy baseball. 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. 877-845-6272. No products in the cart. Kooper was vying against three other players for the starting quarterback spot. As he left, he told Sam, in typically unabashed fashion, Love you. Love you, too, Sam responded. 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. 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. 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. Making it especially tough, he said, was the nearby contrast. 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 Thanks for signing up. Were losing their leadership. 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. Kooper did not know him well, but went out to join friends who had gathered to mourn him. Instead, he set his sights on Stanford, which excelled in sports and academics, and which he had visited for another football camp. Kooper had always gotten straight As, despite a tendency to leave big assignments to the last minute. Even more startling was hearing from school administrators about how well the football season had gone the Denver City team made it to the second round of the playoffs and about the great event of the night prior: the holiday band concert. He was the first to come, and last to leave. March 8, 2021: Due to an inconsistency in data provided by the National Governors Association, an earlier version of this article misrepresented three states COVID-19 case thresholds for reopening schools. This was a problem, because he loved both of them. They held theirs at the high school football stadium, a hulking edifice that can seat 15,000. His parents began to notice how much the disruption and uncertainty was wearing on their normally buoyant son. 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. 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. No doubt, if my son had been in school on Monday this wouldnt have happened, he said. He told me that he had been running through his last interactions with Kooper, over and over, searching for a warning sign, to no avail. She began by reading some lines Kooper had written in his journal, including his paraphrase of a verse of Scripture, If your enemy is hurting give him food. 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. Clockwise from top left: Cutter Cruz, Colton Graham, Easton Kuykendall and Caleb Hedrick. 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. If it would prevent another Kooper, then definitely, yes, she said. You know? The state, led by Democratic Gov. (By contrast, Kentuckys daily threshold was 25 cases per 100,000 people and Oklahomas was 50 cases. He was thinking about Stanford because it was a top academic school with a good football team. Find service information, send flowers, and leave memories and thoughts in the Guestbook for your loved one. 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. My biggest fear is, you pull the rug on these kids, he said. It had happened while Heather was at the grocery store picking up baby formula and something for dinner. He had won over his ninth-grade English teacher, Jennifer Espinoza, with his willingness to engage on the. In late January, Gov. Even with fall sports canceled, the Hobbs school district, with almost 10,000 students, was still hoping to open the new school year for as much in-person instruction as possible. Katrina, a prenatal educator, had been trying for months to draw attention to the mental health needs of Hobbs young people. Theres a difference between a stressor that makes your life unpleasant and intolerable and a stressor that takes away good things, he said. how did kooper davis of hobbs die steve dunn katu salary steve dunn katu salary. Its crazy, said another, Carter Johnson. 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. Rigby. 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. 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. 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 . 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. 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. 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. I dont know who it is, but you need to help them. She talked about Justins love for his son: Thats his boy. The bureaucratic oversight stunned her. But when he heard the name, Stevens was stunned. For student-athletes aspiring to play in college, junior year is key. 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. Its not necessarily that youre experiencing abuse, though some may be. My family was among those facing these decisions. 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. New Mexicos response last year was the opposite. There are the brown highway signs alerting travelers to historical markers tucked away in the nearby scrub. Cooper's family hopes to use his story to . Hobbs High School football player Caleb Hedrick. 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. If we do well, if we work hard, it is possible we could just be delaying them and they could be played later in the year and later into the season. And these apologies are just some of the last words that loved ones will ever hear as they die alone.. You cant sell our material separately or syndicate it. Participation in sports and a connection to school can have a profound protective effect, according to David Brent, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh. 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. Justin and Heather told me how much comfort they were taking in the outpouring over Kooper, especially among his classmates. Already a member? So honestly when do we stand up for our kids?? 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. For more ways to keep up, be sure to check out the rest of our newsletters. I found an empty space to stand in the back. Everything looks the same on either side of the Texas-New Mexico border in the great oil patch of the Permian Basin. Do we fear everyone coming back and possibly getting COVID, or do we fear losing another student more?. Recommend Kooper's obituary to your friends. 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. 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. The boys and their parents wore their masks inside the motels; at games, the parents spread out in the bleachers or on the sidelines. On my final day in Hobbs, I made the short drive across the Texas border to Denver City. This proved a godsend, a way for the boys to keep being active outdoors and around other kids, doing something they loved to do. For high school junior Kooper Davis that made all the difference in the world. But the districts push to reopen was rebuffed by the state education department. Artesia loves you, said the bus from Artesia. 866-495-5172. On Friday nights, high schools still played football, with fans in the stands. He didnt text you or put it on Snap. 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. He wouldve had an adult standing next to him, a coach saying, Kooper, quit being a dummy.. 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. Malena Moreno and her boyfriend, Pedro Gavin Garcia, were friends of Koopers from Lovington, New Mexico, where Kooper lived until he was 12. But Kooper hated virtual school. 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. Watch popular content from the following creators: cl(@chelsleigh2020), mckayla(@mckayla..pierce), angelroseeee12(@roseeeeeeee_0), Lily DeSciscio(@lilymdesciscio), taylorholdridge99(@egdirdlohrolyat22) . Local governmental and educational officials the vast majority of whom arent epidemiologists or experts on indoor airflow have had to formulate policy under intense time pressure while being buffeted by impassioned constituencies on every side and facing the reality that any decision would impose costs on somebody. How is this life that they are living.. Speaking about the same . His parents encouraged him to aim for the Ivy League, but he knew its football was middling. But he knew he needed to work on his agility, which is one reason he took the practices so seriously. James parents said there were no obvious signs that their son was struggling. 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. As the pandemic carried through the summer, worrisome signals started appearing across the country.
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