Nov 16, 2008 11:35 pm US/Central
Family of Drowned Fox River Teen Talks
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
It started as a leadership retreat, but it ended in tragedy. Sunday, Chicago Public Schools Chief Arne Duncan paid his last respects to the family of a high school student who drowned Friday. CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports on the emotional visit.
"They were all working hard. They all had great dreams…dreams are shattered now," said Sharon Gowdy, Avant's mother. "He'll never drive a car. He'll never have a child. He'll never walk across a stage. He'll never go to college."
Sharon Gowdy tells Chicago Shools Chief Arne Duncan about her son Jimmy Avant -- one of three North Lawndale College Prep students who drowned Friday in Algonquin. The teens had been taking part in a leadership retreat at a riverside camp when they snuck out of their cabin and decided to take out paddle boats for an unauthorized trip. But the boats had had their drain plugs removed and quickly sank.
"They shouldn't have been allowed to sneak out there -- you know kids will be kids," Gowdy said.
Duncan promises a complete and thorough investigation of how more than a dozen students could sneak out of their cabins without being stopped by any of the eight chaperones in charge.
"I just can't wrap my mind around it..it's so hard," Gowdy said. "I want to know what happened to my son. Do you know?"
What is known for sure is that her son layed down his life for his friends.
Family members say when Avant saw his friends go under he made a critical choice. He could have left to go get help, but instead said 'am I my brothers keeper?' and went in after his friends.
"It makes me feel a little better that he died doing something he loved, helping other people," said Avant's sister Gerrie Avant. "But it ain't going to make the pain go away because every morning I wake up I know I ain't going to see my brother no more."
Avant's dad drove to Algonquin Friday before dawn after a fellow student called the family and said Avant had disappeared in the 42 degree water.
"It was unbelievable. The whole time I'm driving, I'm hoping I'm going to find him sitting on the shore wet with a blanket around him," said Avant's father, Leonard Avant.
Instead that blanket was at the morgue where Avant says he had to identify the body of his son.
Avant's family members say he was valedictorian of his grade school. They say he planned on attending college next year to study engineering.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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