Hundreds remember teen killed in crash
Posted On: Sunday, Mar. 21 2010 11:52 PM
By Don Bolding
Killeen Daily HeraldCOPPERAS COVE – Hundreds of young people and family friends gathered at the Cinergy Cinema, where 18-year-old Byron R. Weatherspoon worked before his death in a car crash Friday, for a memorial celebration of his life Sunday afternoon.
Byron, who would have graduated from Copperas Cove High School this semester, was killed in a one-car accident about 3:30 a.m. Friday in Williamson County.
Family friend Renee Perry, representing Byron's mother Pat Jackson, who was busy with adult friends and relatives at home, told the crowd, "We'll all miss Byron, but he really is in a better place. He wouldn't come back here even if he could. This should be a lesson to all of you, though, to be where your mothers think you are and want you to be."
The youths got a cake on hasty order from Walmart with the words, "Byron, We Miss You," and all planned to sign a poster to present to the family.
Queana "Pumpkin" Mahoney, a school friend of Byron's, said, "I guess I was the first one of us to hear about it, about 6 a.m. Saturday. It broke my heart. Byron was closer than a brother to me. He was the only friend I could really talk to about things."
Perry said the group first wanted to hold the get-together in a park, but Sunday's weather was far too cold. "So we asked the theater, and they've closed off half the building for us."
Contact Don Bolding at
dbolding@kdhnews.com or call (254) 501-7557. Follow him on Twitter at KDHbusiness.