Jesus Balderas, who celebrated his 16th birthday just last month, died in a single-car wreck along with his older brother and older sister, who is a Midway graduate, said school principal Stuart Daughtery. The sister’s boyfriend was also in the vehicle at the time, but was not killed as a result, the principal said.
Daughtery said funeral arrangements for the three siblings were incomplete.
He, like others around the school, was hearing the sad news trickle in as the day went on Monday. Daughtery said it was his understanding the four occupants were in a vehicle that lost control due to inclement weather and poor road conditions in Georgia on Saturday. The principal said it was not known what specific part of the state the fatal wreck occurred or what may have brought the siblings to that area.
“I think most of our kids, like myself, didn’t know anything until this morning,” Daughtery said Monday. “Most of them were in shock because most of them just heard about it this morning.”
Most students grieving at the loss were concerned that they had not only lost a close friend, but that his family would now have to cope with the deaths of three children. Many students spent time in the school’s auditorium Monday, making posters in tribute to Balderas to put on walls around the school. Cards and posters with words of encouragement and consolement were signed by students and faculty to give to Balderas’ parents.
“A lot of our kids wanted to do something for them,” said Daughtery. The high school will take food over to the family today (Tuesday) after the middle school helped the family Monday. The high school students were also planning to take up a donation at lunch today.
“We’re just trying to help out in what little way we can,” the principal remarked.
Balderas also has a younger sister, who is a seventh-grader at Midway Middle School. She was not involved in the wreck, Daughtery said.
It was the sudden loss of yet another student at Midway High School, which has seen numerous deaths of current students and recent graduates in recent years — far more than any other school in Sampson County.
The mood at the school Monday was somber, said Daughtery, who is in his first year of principalship at Midway. At the same time, there was an unsettling feeling of déja vu for a school that has experienced similar tragedies before.
“The mood was like ‘here we go again,’” Daughtery said. “It has become a regular occurrence in this community. A lot of our kids took it pretty hard.”
ATV riders charged
Two teenagers whose all-terrain vehicles collided on N.C. 242, sending one of the teens flipping to the pavement, have received charges from the N.C. Highway Patrol.
Joshua Keith Dowd, 15, of 160 Garden Lane, Roseboro, and Anthony Tyler Cox, 15, of 1485 Odum Road, Clinton, have each been charged with no operator’s license, no insurance, no motorcycle endorsement and failing to register the vehicles, Trooper J.L. Murphy stated in reports. Dowd received additional charges of no helmet and failure to reduce speed.
Dowd was airlifted to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington following the collision, to which the Highway Patrol responded shortly before 5:30 p.m. Thursday. The wreck occurred about seven miles north of Salemburg.
The two teens, who are students at Midway High School, were traveling north on N.C. 242 atop separate four-wheelers at the time.
According to reports, Cox was slowing his 2008 Suzuki to make a turn when Dowd’s 1997 Polaris ran into the back of the ATV, overturning three times and flipping nearly 70 feet way, ejecting Dowd in the process.
First Sgt. D.L. Hewitt said Dowd was treated in New Hanover Thursday night and released the next day.
About other story, I do not understand where the story writer's ethics are on publishing the names and addresses of these juveniles.The newspaper sure will not do their part to protect our children like they should.I guess that will just give them somehting else bad to write about if something should happen!!