03/01/05
By Alan Riquelmy, Rome News-Tribune Staff Writer

Vicki Faulk (right), Sean Wilkinson’s mother, consoles her daughter Christi Wilkinson as Faye Hewatt, Sean’s grandmother, looks on Monday in Suwannee, Fla. Phil Sandlin / The Associated Press

Clay McKemie was outgoing. Friends remember him break dancing at a Darlington formal as other students sat by the walls.

Sean Wilkinson liked his coffee and chocolate chip cookies. He had to have them, friends say.

Both of the 14-year-olds will be missed by those who knew them.

McKemie of Rome and Wilkinson of Acworth were found dead off the coast of Florida on Monday. The teens were with eight other people who traveled to Dixie County for a kayaking, canoeing and camping trip.

McKemie’s parents are Mac and Kristy McKemie of Rome. Wilkinson’s parents are Vicki Faulk of Acworth and Chris Wilkinson of Waleska.

Lee Phillips, a junior from Chattanooga, Tenn., almost went on the camping trip, though he chose to visit with family instead. Darlington is currently on spring break. Phillips lived in the same dormitory as Wilkinson and went to Morris Chapel on Darlington’s campus where mourners gathered Monday.

“I always talked to him when he needed somebody,” Phillips s

Clay McKemie was to have his first steel drum band performance at the end of March.

aid after the gathering. “He was quiet, but he had a lot of friends. He lived life to the fullest.”

Chris Tumblin of Rome, a freshman at Darlington, knew McKemie from childhood. The two had lived on the same street, Tumblin said.

“It’s just not right what happened,” Tumblin said. “They lived a fraction of what they should have.”

Darlington’s flag stood at half-staff Monday as the school’s community gathered to pay respects or simply to remember the students.

“Our desire is that whenever something like this happens is to be as supportive as we can be,” said Jill Pate, director of personal counseling at Darlington, during the gathering. “Whenever tragedy touches

Sean Wilkinson was fond of coffee and chocolate chip cookies, friends say.

our lives, our human response is to reach out to one another. It’s impossible to make sense of something so nonsensical. You get through these sorts of things just by loving each other. It’s what people do.”

Claire Wyatt and Nash Cooper, both freshmen, shared classes with Wilkinson and describe him as someone who loved to make others laugh.

“Sean loved coffee,” Wyatt said. “He had to have some everyday.”

Cooper agreed. “Sean loved chocolate chip cookies. He had to have cookies and coffee.”

Wyatt and Wilkinson would sing songs together. Once they found CDs from their childhood, songs they hadn’t heard in years.

“We both knew them by heart,” Wyatt said. “Looking back, that’s one of the best memories I have of him.”

Wyatt wasn’t as close to McKemie, but she remembers a Christmas formal when everyone was sitting at tables, avoiding the dance floor.

“Clay was the one in the middle of the dance floor just break dancing,” Wyatt said. “He wanted to make it fun for everyone.”

Both boys participated in Darlington’s recent play, “Anything Goes,” held at the Rome City Auditorium. They also were members of the school’s Steel Drum Band. Wilkinson played the double tenor, McKemie the double seconds.

Jim Hendrix, interim president of Darlington, echoed the sentiment. “We’re feeling somewhat helpless and impotent because of the overpowering sadness. We’re saddened beyond articulation.”

Hendrix pointed to Monday’s gathering at the chapel as one way the community pulled together to support itself, saying some form of the gathering would occur again this coming Sunday as well as Monday, when Darlington resumes classes.

Darlington Canoeing Tragedy Memorial