High schoolers’ deaths weigh heavy on small-town Saluda after tragic crash
On a wide-open road flanked by green-brown fields and tallish pines, a wide gash cuts across one of the slim tree trunks. Strips of frayed bark hang from it, and shards of shattered taillight scatter the ground around it.
Beside the gashed tree, another stands as a memorial.
Flowers, hats, framed photographs, letters and a pair of wooden crosses have been carefully lain against the tree in the days since Drayton Black and Jaden Coleman, two Saluda High School students, crashed and died here. A third teen, Jaden’s brother Kadius, was severely injured and hospitalized after the tragic Monday night crash on Long Road in the rural county.
“I love you forever and always and then some,” reads a hand-written note tucked inside a plastic storage box at the tree, stored alongside a small teddy bear, a bottle of Mountain Dew, a tin of Copenhagen chewing tobacco and a lime green lighter. “I will forever count our blessings. Rest easy baby boy.”
A mood of devastation overtook many in the small town of Saluda this week, as the community mourns the two students’ deaths and prays for Kadius’ recovery.
“It’s touched everybody in town. It’s a sad, sad thing,” said Maynard Gibson, a local florist who is preparing flower arrangements for the teens’ funerals.
The town’s sorrow was a sharp turn from the joy it shared just weeks ago, when the Saluda High Tigers celebrated their first state football championship in more than half a century. Thousands of Tiger fans came in droves to the state capital to cheer on their team.
All three of the teens involved in the crash were student athletes. Drayton was on the high school baseball team, while the Coleman brothers both played football, according to the Index-Journal of Greenwood.
As deeply as a tight-knit community feels pride in its high school teams, much more does it feel the pain of losing its young athletes.
“In a small town, it’s just devastating, because you know people,” said Ralph Shealy, a lifelong Saluda resident who calls the high school football games over the public address system and owns the local newspaper, the Saluda Standard-Sentinel.
About 20,000 people live in Saluda County, and about 600 of them attend Saluda High. The rest are closely connected; they’re alumni, or they have children attending, or they’ve coached a student, or they go to church with a Tiger family.
“I knew the kids because I go to church with kids who play baseball and football. ... That’s one of their teammates,” Shealy said. “We went from the elation of winning the state championship last month to the deep depression of what happened Monday night. It just went from that to that. It’s tough.”
In the high school gym this weekend, the town will gather for memorial services honoring 17-year-old Drayton and 16-year-old Jaden.
“Saluda High and the town are synonymous,” the school’s principal, Robert Etheredge, said. “Obviously, we are all very devastated when something happens to one of our kids. We are shaken. We rally around each other in the good times and support one another in times of tragedy.”
Support also has come from high schools across South Carolina. At least two dozen high school teams sent condolences to Saluda High on Twitter, including the Abbeville High and Barnwell High football teams. Saluda beat Abbeville in the state semi-finals and Barnwell in the state Class AA championship game last season.
“We are rivals on the field but no one should be without our prayers and support during tough times,” the Abbeville football team tweeted.
In Saluda, Kay’s Flowers shop on Main Street was to prepare dozens of floral arrangements ahead of the services. Most of them would be themed in Saluda High’s signature purple and white colors, said Gibson, who’s owned the shop for nearly 50 years. Some, in honor of hunting enthusiast Drayton, would feature woodsy elements such as antlers and turkey feathers.
Drayton’s mother had visited the florist just last week to prepare for an upcoming father-daughter banquet, Gibson said.
“I dread going to see her, because I’ve known her all my life,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody. So when it touches one here, it touches everybody. It’s hard to let you know how everybody feels, but everybody that’s been in here, you can tell it’s really, really put a damper on things.”
One of the young girls who visited the flower shop this week had remarked that “it had never really registered with her how uncertain life is,” Gibson said. “At that age, it doesn’t.”
While the boys’ deaths have struck the entire community, they hit differently for Saluda’s younger residents.
Donna Way held a comforting arm around the thin shoulders of her 13-year-old son, Kenneth, as they visited the memorial at the crash site Thursday morning. They parked their car across the street, near where the boys’ pickup truck had run off the shoulder and over-corrected, hitting a tree on the opposite side.
Kenneth, soft-spoken and wet-eyed, had known the boys through football and had been taught by Drayton’s mother in elementary school.
Way’s daughter, who shared classes with the boys in school, had noted the sadness and strangeness of their absence this week, she said.
Having dealt with similar tragedies in her own family, Way said, “it doesn’t get any easier” as you live with the loss. But eventually, she said, “you come to the realization that life goes on and they wouldn’t want you moping around.”
She held her son’s shoulders as he looked at the ground, and quiet tears fell.
Visual journalist Tracy Glantz contributed reporting.
