Person Page - 3281

     Eugene Delbert "Gene" Kelley was buried at Miller Grove German Baptist Church Cemetery, 4732 – 4742 Clark Station Road, Palestine, Darke Co., Ohio.^9,5 His Social Security Number was 268-30-1250.¹⁰ He was born on October 21, 1932 at Adams, Darke Co., Ohio.^4,10,5,6 He married Idamae Elizabeth Flory on December 10, 1952 at Montgomery Co., Ohio.^5,8 Eugene Delbert "Gene" Kelley died on July 27, 2005 at Dayton, Montgomery Co., Ohio, at age 72.^4,10,5 He Eugene D. "Gene" Kelley, 72, of New Madison, died July 27, 2005, at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. He was born Oct. 21, 1932, in Darke County, son of the late Grover and Mary (Wade) Kelley. He was retired from Witt Plastics and also farmed in the Darke County area. He was a member of the Palestine Old German Baptist Brethren Church. Preceding him in death are his parents; brothers John Kelley, Donald Kelley and twin brother Eldean Kelley; sisters Margaret Aten and Marcella Sink. He is survived by his wife Idamae E. (Flory) Kelley whom he married on Dec. 7, 1952; son Phillip E. Kelley of Covington; daughters, Mryna Nachatelo of Mautson, WI., Beth Witmer of Goshen, Ind., Anne Wolf of Arcanum; 20 grandchildren; 4 great-grandchildren; brother-in-law Wilfred Sink; sisters, Pauline Windmiller of Versailles, Nova Rogers of Covington, Norma Angle of Pleasant Hill, Lois Flora of Manteca, CA; as well as numerous nieces and nephews. Burial in Miller Cemetery, Palestine. on July 28, 2005.⁵

     Lois Kelley was buried at Wood Colony Cemetery, 3511 Dakota Avenue, Salida, Stanislaus Co., California.^3,8 She was born on November 6, 1934 at Darke Co., Ohio.^3,5 As of September 29, 1953,her married name was Flora.⁴ She married Donald Ray Flora on September 29, 1953 at Darke Co., Ohio.^3,4 Lois Kelley died on January 7, 2014 at Manteca, San Joaquin Co., California, at age 79.³ She Lois, Flora - November 6, 1934 - January 7, 2014. It is with heavy hearts that we share the passing of Lois Anna Flora of Manteca, CA. at the age of 79. She went to be with the Lord on Tuesday, January 7th, 2014, suffering from health issues brought on by a recent stroke. She was preceded in death by her husband, Donald, in 1989. Also passing before were her parents, Grover and Mary Kelley (Wade) as well as sisters, Margaret Aten, Pauline Windmiller, Marcella Sink, Nova Rogers and Norma Angle, as well as brothers John Kelley and Eugene Kelley. A devoted mother and grandmother, she is survived by her three sons, Stephen, Gary and Greg, as well as four grandchildren Christina, Donald, Susanna and Emily. Mother always had a kind word or a helping hand for anyone and was very fond of the smiles her home-made pies would bring to friends, neighbors and loved-ones. She was active in her church, Northgate Church of Manteca as well as involved with homeless charities and band boosters while her boys were in band. A graveside service will be held at Wood Colony Cemetery, 3511 Dakota Ave. Modesto CA. on January 14, 2014.³

     Robert William Windmiller was buried at Green Mound Cemetery, New Madison, Darke Co., Ohio.^1,6 His Social Security Number was 287-14-0346.⁷ He was born on April 18, 1922 at Darke Co., Ohio.^7,1,8,3,4,5 He married Pauline Virginia Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on October 14, 1953 at Darke Co., Ohio.^9,2,6 Robert William Windmiller died on August 18, 1991 at Greenville, Darke Co., Ohio, at age 69.^7,1,8,4,6 He Robert W. Windmiller, 69, of 4504 U.S. 127, Greenville, died Sunday morning at his residence following a brief illness. Mr. Windmiller, a native of New Madison, lived in the local area his entire life. He was a son of Merril and Zora (Bozworth) Windmiller, deceased. He was a member of the Evangelical United Methodist Church and Swinging 8's Square Dance Club, both of Greenville, and the Good Sam Campers Club. He was formerly a vehicle operator with Fram Corporation for 33 years, retiring in June 1984. Mr. Windmiller was a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps, having served in the South Pacific in World War II. Surviving are his wife, Pauline (Kelley); one son, Robert of Pottstown, Pa; three daughters, Mrs. Lee (Lynn) Bialek of Birdsboro, Pa., Mrs. Robert (Leanna) Swank of Franklin, Ind., and Mrs. Raymond (Ginger) Lyons of Covington; nine grandchildren; and one greatgrandchild. Burial will follow in Greenmound Cemetery, New Madison. on August 20, 1991.⁶

     Robert Dean Swank was buried at Greenville Union Cemetery, 205 West Street, Greenville, Darke Co., Ohio.³ He was born on July 21, 1939 at Union City, Randolph Co., Indiana.³ He married Leanna Sue King, daughter of James Gordon King and Pauline Virginia Kelley, on January 14, 1961 at Greenville, Darke Co., Ohio.^1,4,5,3 Robert Dean Swank died on May 13, 2019 at Indiana at age 79.³ He Robert D. Swank, 79, of Franklin, IN. passed away Monday, May 13, 2019. He was born July 21, 1939 in Union City, Indiana to Ralph E. and Helen M. (Poling) Swank. He grew up in Greenville, Ohio. He graduated from Greenville High School in 1957 and attended Ohio State University. He married Leanna (King) Swank on January 14, 1961 in Greenville, OH. She survives. He is also survived by their children Douglas Swank of Lawrence, IN., Debra Kincaid (Steve) of Noblesville, IN., and Daniel Swank (Janelle) of East Jordan, MI., grandchildren Cody Lavelle of Largo, FL., Emerson, Sarah and Ethan Swank all of Lawrence, IN, and their mother Dorothy Lavelle-Swank, Matthew and Nicholas Kincaid both of Noblesville, IN., Jarret Swank (Anna) of Columbus, OH, Evelyn Friske (Jon) of Charlevoix, MI., brother-in-law George Pierron of Greenville, OH., sisters-in-law Virginia Lyons (Ray) of Covington, OH, Kathy Phillips and Karena Phillips (Mark) all of Circleville, OH., Christine Swank of Tipp City, OH., nieces, nephews, and cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents, sister Joyce Pierron, brother Bruce Swank, niece Linda (Pierron) Mallot and Anita (Swank) Brandt, and brother-in- law Dan Phillips. Bob retired from Sprint Corporation after 40 years of service. He was a member of Tabernacle. Christian Church in Franklin. His community service included member and past president of Franklin Kiwanis Club, past president of the Franklin Chamber of Commerce, past president of the Great Franklin Chamber Board, Citizens of Franklin Future Board, past treasurer and board member of the United Way of Johnson County, a member of the Indiana Telephone Pioneers Association, and the Johnson County Development Corporation where he served on the board. A graveside service will be conducted at Greenville Union Cemetery 200 West Street Greenville, OH. on May 15, 2019.³

     David Lee Rogers was buried at Miami Memorial Park Cemetery, Covington, Miami Co., Ohio.⁵ His Social Security Number was 280-32-2488.⁶ He was born on September 13, 1922 at Darke Co., Ohio.^6,5,7,8,3 He married Nova M. Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on June 16, 1943 at Greenville, Miami Co., Ohio.^1,2,9,4 David Lee Rogers died on June 8, 2010 at Troy, Miami Co., Ohio, at age 87.^6,5,8 He ROGERS, David age 87 of Covington, passed away June 8, 2010, at Sterling House of Troy. He was born September 13, 1922. Interment at Miami Memorial Park, Covington. on June 10, 2010.⁵

     Luther Eugene Angle Luther Angle, age 91, of Pleasant Hill, passed away Sunday, July 13, 2014. He was born February 24, 1923, in Covington, Ohio, to his parents Willis Thomas & Ollie (Rapp) Angle. He was preceded in death by his first wife Mary Elizabeth (Sink) Angle and second wife Norma Ruth (Kelly) Angle; two twin sons; two great grandchildren; brothers Marion, Delmar, Kenneth, Paul Angle; sisters Glenna Stevenson, Thelma Sink, Lois King, Mary Ellen Diltz, Jean Piatt.He will be missed and remembered by his children Don & Jackie Angle of Covington, Mary June & Gary Denlinger of Brookville, Frieda & Randy Garber of Pleasant Hill; grandchildren Seth & Havilah Angle, Sally & Chad Crist, Joseph & Shana Angle, David & Darlene Angle, Paula & Jake Flora, Patty & Rodney Wolf, Missy & Eric Brubaker, Robin & Lynton Yost, Dana & Clayton Wise, Garret Garber, Grant & Jeanne Garber; 38 great grandchildren; brother Clinton Angle; sisters Pauline Beckner of Colorado, Betty Lou Fisher of Eaton. Interment following at Highland Cemetery.⁴ He was buried at Highland Cemetery, 796 North High Street, Covington, Miami Co., Ohio.^5,4 He was born on February 24, 1923 at Covington, Miami Co., Ohio.^5,4,6,3 He married Norma Ruth Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on August 1, 1998 at Miami Co., Ohio.^1,2,7,4 Luther Eugene Angle died on July 13, 2014 at Pleasant HIll, Miami Co., Ohio, at age 91.^5,4,6

     His Social Security Number was 309-32-9863.⁶ Donald Ray Flora was buried at Wood Colony Cemetery, 3511 Dakota Avenue, Salida, Stanislaus Co., California.³ He was born on March 22, 1932 at Flora, Carroll Co., Indiana.^2,6,3,4 He married Lois Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on September 29, 1953 at Darke Co., Ohio.^1,7 Donald Ray Flora died on April 29, 1989 at Santa Clara Co., California, at age 57.^6,2,3

     His Social Security Number was 280-07-2677.⁶ Adrian Herman Aten was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery, Fort Jefferson, Darke Co., Ohio.^4,7 He was born on March 30, 1915 at Darke Co., Ohio.^2,5,6,8 He married Margaret Catherine Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on May 8, 1939 at Williamstown, Kentucky.^9,3,4,7,10 Adrian Herman Aten died on June 10, 2002 at Greenville, Darke Co., Ohio, at age 87.^2,3,7,6 He Adrian H. Aten, 87, 4224 Hogpath Rd., Greenville, died at 5 p.m. June 10, 2002, in the Brethren Home Medical Center, Greenville. Mr. Aten was born March 30, 1915, in Darke County, the son of the late Leonard and Clara (Hunt) Aten. He was married May 8, 1939, to Margaret C. (Kelley) Aten, Greenville. He had retired from farming, having farmed his entire life in Neave Township, Darke County. He was a member of the Evangelical United Methodist Church of Greenville since 1950, a former member of the Greenville School Board, having served eight years, a 30-year very active member of the Darke County Farm Bureau, a member of the Darke County Board of Elections in Neave Township, a member of the Darke County 4-H Beef Club, and had worked part-time for the United States Dept. of Agriculture in crop reporting services. Mr. Aten was a 1933 graduate of Greenville High School and enjoyed hunting and fishing. He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother, Frank Aten, who died July 2, 1944. He is survived by his wife, a son and daughter-in-law Ronald A. and Connie Aten, Bloomfield, Mich., a daughter and son-in-law, Karen L. and John King, Nokesville, Va., grandchildren Michelle Attreed, Alison Aten Ergen, Kelley Hoff, Timothy Aten, and great grandchildren Corbin and Amber Attreed. Burial will be at Oak Grove Cemetery, Ft. Jefferson. on June 12, 2002.⁷

     Wilfred Nathaniel Sink Wilfred Nathaniel Sink, 88, of Troy, was born Feb, 9, 1925, to William and Ida (Peters) Sink in Franklin County Va. He departed this life on Dec. 30, 2013, at Spring Meade Nursing Home, Tipp City, at the age of 88 years, 9 months, 21 days. He was united in marriage to Marcella Jean Kelley on June 19, 1948. They were baptized into Jesus Christ, becoming members of the Old German Baptist Brethren Church fellowship on June 19, 1949, in the Covington district. Wilfred was a farmer all his life. Left with their precious memories are sons and daughters-in-law, Roland and Charlotte Sink, Bill and Jeanne Sink, and Fred and Kristen Sink; 11 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, Michelle and Dave Swearingen, with Brendan, Bailey and Dane, Jason and Lisa Sink, with Stewart, Alyssa and Myra, Brent and Laura with Deacon and Nora, John and Heidi Sink with Jared, Megan, Winston and Owen, Gina and Pete Rapp, with Chloe, Olivia, Ava and Emmaline, Lisa and Jake Forsythe with Caroline, Sarah and Nick Boone with Neva, Julie and Tim Benedict, Laurie and Travis Wolf with Noah and Eli, Stacy and Chad Angle with Finn and Sully, and Kim and Craig Rumble; sister-in-laws Virginia Sink, Gladys Sink, Idamae Kelley and Lois Flora and brother-in-law Luther Angle. He was preceded in death by his parents; his six brothers Jesse, Loyd, Roy, Nelson, Clinton and Gerald; and one sister Elizabeth Angle. Dad will be sadly missed and long remembered by his family, all of whom loved him dearly. We have that blessed hope of sometime being gloriously united again with him and our Savior in "the Holy City," the New Jerusalem. Interment following at Highland Cemetery.² He was buried at Highland Cemetery, 796 North High Street, Covington, Miami Co., Ohio.^1,2 He was born on February 9, 1925 at Franklin Co., Virginia.² He married Marcella Jean Kelley, daughter of Grover Jefferson Kelley and Mary Frances Wade, on June 19, 1948 at Darke Co., Ohio.^3,1,2,4 Wilfred Nathaniel Sink died on December 30, 2013 at Tipp City, Miami Co., Ohio, at age 88.²

     Eldean E. Kelley was buried at Gettysburg Cemetery (also known as Cromer Cemetery), Gettysburg, Darke Co., Ohio.⁴ He was born on October 21, 1932 at Ohio.³ He died on December 24, 1932 at Darke Co., Ohio.²

     His Social Security Number was 231-79-9418.⁵ Max Silver Poff was buried at Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens, 5737 Airport Road NW, Roanoke, Virginia.^1,3 He was born on November 17, 1997 at Roanoke, Virginia.^1,2,5,3 He died on February 20, 2014 at Roanoke, Virginia, at age 16.^1,5,3,4 He Max Silver Poff, of Roanoke Co., born November 17, 1997, went to be with his Heavenly Father on February 20, 2014. Max had a heart of gold and was caring and kind to everyone he met. He faced a lot of challenges in his life but he always had a way of putting a smile on your face with his personality. He was preceded in death by his loving grandfather, Franklin D. Poff (Poppie). Max leaves behind his loving parents, David F. and Dianna S. Poff; grandmother, Barbara Poff (Mammaw), sisters, Danielle Holliday, Ashley Aurthur; brothers, John Paul Knowles, and Daniel Stewart; many aunts, uncles, and cousins; and very special friends, Justin, Tristan, Caleb, Adam and Zach. Burial will follow in Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens. on February 23, 2014.¹ He Teen’s suicide leaves lingering questions. The only person who knows for certain what prompted 16-year-old Max Poff to hike into the woods behind his house on a damp February afternoon and put his father’s pistol to his head is no longer around to tell the story. The boy’s friends, family and teachers at William Byrd High School are left to grapple with a fuzzy collage of clues. Rumors float around of bullying encounters at school and of angry words at home. A teary bus ride home from school ended Feb. 20 with Max Poff writing a suicide note to his best friend, Justin. “I’m sorry that I’m doing this but I won’t be suffering anymore,” he wrote in neat block print. After putting pencil to notebook paper, Max called Justin and told him where he could find his body — near the rock in southeast Roanoke County where the two used to camp. Family and friends will gather Sunday at the Vinton War Memorial for a benefit car show to pay for Max’s headstone and raise money for a nonprofit. But they have unanswered questions about his death. Though police have officially determined that school-based bullying was not a factor in the boy’s Feb. 20 suicide, David and Dianna Poff aren’t so certain. Some other Byrd parents and Poff family friends share their skepticism, describing a culture of bullying they say is endemic at the Vinton school. One of them is Donald Angle, Justin’s father and a salt-of-the-earth furniture worker who loved Max as if he were his own son. Angle was the one who found the boy lying sideways next to the boulder, the pistol next to him on the rock; the one who raced to the scene when his son told him what Max had said, then flagged police down after calling 911. Angle and his son were so shocked, it’s been hard trying to equate the bloody scene with the sweet skinny kid who loved fast cars, drawing pictures of fast cars and making people laugh. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “Why it had to come to this.” He had his learner’s permit and was just 13 hours shy of taking his driver’s license test. The Impala his dad had already bought for him is still outside the family’s front door. Max had long dreamed of painting it sunburst red, and adding wheel rims and a killer sound system. More than anything, Max wanted to be a Marine. He was proud to have been promoted within the ranks of his school JROTC, of wearing his uniform and flaunting his shoulder braid insignia and beret. “He wore this one on Tuesdays, this one on Thursdays,” his mother, Dianna Poff, said, fanning the pressed uniforms she keeps in his bedroom closet. “Max was a lover and a protector, not a fighter.” At his funeral, several students spoke about Max sticking up for them against bullies. Two girls credited him with saving their lives. “He had talked them out of it [suicide],” recalled Wendy McCauley, Max’s former elementary school art teacher and a longtime family friend. McCauley recalled Max as a happy but sensitive kid, a silly face-maker and joke-teller with a great eye for detail. “He was the kind of kid who put on this ‘I’m a tough kid, I can handle anything.’ But he was really a softy with a big ole teddy-bear heart,” McCauley said. “Things would get to him, and he’d try to hide it. But you could see it under the surface.” By his sophomore year, Max was 6-foot-1 and 130 pounds. He and Justin could each put away three bologna sandwiches in a sitting, and Max wouldn’t gain a pound. At all-you-can-eat Cici’s Pizza, Max once ate 20 slices, his dad said, then went back for dessert. He’d wanted to try out for football — until a kid at school berated him for his size, claiming he’d never make the cut. That student, an athlete widely known as a Byrd bully among the students, teased Max repeatedly about his size, saying Max would never make the football team, according to several students and parents interviewed by The Roanoke Times. “It was like, ‘You ain’t big enough to hang with the big dogs,’ ” recalled a Byrd sophomore who said Max confided in her about being bullied on several occasions. The sophomore, whose name is not being published to protect her identity, said her mother called the school to report the harassment, and she herself reported it to a guidance counselor. But they never did anything. … That kid is definitely still bullying and pushing other kids around,” she said. A mother of another Byrd student — who asked that her name not be used because she feared her daughter might be bullied more severely — confirmed that account. Her own daughter was in ROTC with Max and experienced bullying at the hands of another student, who is also fellow ROTC cadet. “A week after Max died, for whatever reason, they ganged up on her,” said the mother, who is a Vinton resident and works in the accounting department of a Roanoke business. They showed a picture of her around to a group and laughed mockingly at her, the mother said. “When I asked her why, she said, ‘I guess it’s because I’m ugly.’ She’s made to feel different and ostracized,” added the mother, a single mom who has another, younger daughter at the school who has not experienced bullying. Her eldest daughter has been called a “slut” because she’s large-chested, and “stupid” because of a learning disability. She’s twice been hospitalized for severe depression and suicidal thoughts. "When Max killed himself, it opened my daughter’s eyes that she wasn’t alone. She saw how Dianna was hurting. She said, ‘Mom, I could never do that to you.’ So in a twisted way … losing Max saved my daughter’s life.” According to a Youth Risk Behavior Survey, half of all Roanoke County school kids reported being bullied in 2012 — 12.7 percent of those surveyed said it happened to them daily. The rate for attempted suicide among the high school teens was 11.4 percent, almost double the national average. And an astonishing one in four reported feeling sad or hopeless every day for more than two weeks at a time — the clinical definition of depressed. And yet, both school and police officials initially asserted that bullying had nothing to do with Max Poff’s suicide. “In conducting their investigation, detectives did not find bullying as being a contributing cause to the death of this boy,” said Assistant Chief Chuck Mason of Roanoke County Police. “When we chased the information [leads] down to the original people, the information just didn’t bear up,” Mason said earlier this week. “I’m not sure we would ever say that he was never, ever bullied. But I’m comfortable saying our detectives did not find” evidence of bullying. But bullying rumors abounded in the aftermath on social media, with everyone from classmates to Poff’s own father accused of making life unbearable for Max. There was also talk of prosecuting David Poff for illegally possessing the gun Max used to take his life, though Mason said no such charges would be filed. David Poff volunteered that he is a convicted felon and not allowed to own a gun, stemming from criminal charges dating back nearly 15 years ago. He’s been sober and out of trouble for 10 years, he said. The plumber kept the pistol and rifles in a cabinet, though Max knew where the key was hidden. The guns and gun cabinet were gifts from his late father, and he kept them both for protection and for nostalgia, he said. The pistol was destroyed by police at the Poffs’ request, and the rifles were sold. Asked if detectives had interviewed certain people alleged to be well-known bullies at Byrd — names of which The Roanoke Times turned over to Mason during follow-up interviews — Mason said Friday they were following up on leads, adding, “If anyone comes forward with new information [about the Poff case], if that exists, we would love to talk to that individual.” At a reporter’s suggestion, detectives did re-interview Justin, Poff’s best friend, and were trying to reach out to others interviewed by The Roanoke Times. Schools superintendent Lorraine Lange said her heart goes out to the Poff family, and she hopes the family can heal. “Bullying by definition is something that’s done to the same person constantly over and over again. Because of Columbine and everything, a lot of people are labeling things ‘bullying’ when, unless it’s constant, that’s not really what bullying is.” According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, bullying behaviors “happen more than once or have the potential to happen more than once.” University of Virginia education professor Dewey Cornell added one additional qualifier to the bullying definition: “There has to be a power imbalance between the victim and the perpetrator,” he said. “These things are difficult to legislate, and they require nuanced judgment by school authorities in many cases.” Last August, the U.S. Department of Education issued stern warnings to public schools nationwide, reminding them that acts of bullying involving gender, race, religion or special education status can be federally prosecuted as a civil rights violation. Bullying laws and policies are an extension of a growing children’s rights movement, following such historical protections of children including child labor laws and child abuse laws. “One of the last areas in which children have not been protected is in their workplace, which is the school,” Cornell added. Cornell and other experts encourage schools to adopt evidence-based practices, including comprehensive staff and student training, and parental-notification policies — not to just bring in a single anti-bullying motivational speaker and assume the topic has sufficiently been covered. “The best programs create a peer culture at the school in which bullying is regarded as something that’s not acceptable,” and encourage witnesses of bullying behavior not to show approval, Cornell said. Max called his plumber dad his “drill sergeant.” When a friend from school invited Max to join his family on a beach vacation, his father said no because he didn’t know the family — prompting fury from his son, who wanted desperately to go. David Poff, 46, raised Max mainly as a single dad and frequently took him on plumbing calls at all hours of the day and night. “I’d tell the customer, ‘I need someone to watch my son, and ya gotta feed him.’ ” The Poffs have reunited as a couple, though they are technically still divorced. They have long lived in the same house, with Dianna in the downstairs apartment and David upstairs. “He could read a rule; he could tape a pipe,” his father said. Max helped dig out his grandparents’ basement when his dad added a bathroom there. He especially loved helping his dad’s elderly customers, carrying their laundry and taking out their trash. He had a crush on McCauley, his art teacher, who was a favorite customer, and took special care to wear his ROTC uniform to calls at her house. They’d named him Max Silver Poff — Max, for the warrior “Mad Max,” and Silver for his grandma’s favorite saying, “There’s a silver lining in every cloud.” The Poffs say the lining wasn’t so silver, though, when a few older kids taunted their son last year in ROTC, dumping out his backpack, drinking his Gatorade, and going through his computer. As David Poff recalls telling his son, “We don’t put up with that, Max. Don’t just take it.” When another incident happened a month before his suicide — a kid in gym class poked him in the eye with the feather-end of an archery arrow — Max rushed him, they tousled on the floor, and both kids were suspended for the fight for five days, the Poffs say. David Poff’s longtime customers say rumors of the man’s harsh parenting style are an exaggeration of the man’s blue-collar, old-school work ethic: Take care of your family. Stand up for yourself. Be a man. The last time Laura Bradford Godfrey had the father-and-son plumbing team to her house — just a month before the boy’s death — Max confided to her husband, Tom, “that the reason he went on so many service calls was because he wanted to spend more time with his dad. The idea that David was a bully to his son, that is just not accurate,” Godfrey said. She’d meant to alert David to the boy’s comment but didn’t get to it in time and lives now with that regret. “David has a past, yeah, and he was a little rough around the edges, but he’s also one of the kindest people I know, and he and Max were great together.” Max and David Poff often worked for free on Godfrey’s elderly mother-in-law’s house, sticking around after plumbing jobs to do yard and house chores. “If this was a family that had more money or more social standing, I think the school’s reaction would have been totally different,” she said. A candlelight vigil for Max wasn’t held on school grounds. It was held at Parkway Wesleyan Church instead, and nearly 200 students came. Lange said suicides are handled differently than accidental deaths because “people are afraid of look-alikes, and if you make a big deal of something at school, you’re afraid it’s gonna be repeated.” There were comments on social media claiming that officials wouldn’t allow the vigil on school grounds but after checking with principal Richard Turner, Lange said in a subsequent phone call that “the school was never approached and asked to have one.” Lange also said the school had not received a “direct complaint” about the athlete who allegedly bullied Max and several others at the school. “We need to do another investigation after we get all the information,” she said Friday. The Byrd parent whose daughter was twice hospitalized said she hadn’t thought it would be effective to complain to the superintendent’s office. “I felt like it would make things harder on her if I took it any further,” she said, after her repeated complaints to school administrators were brushed off, she said. “What I literally told my daughter was: ‘Keep your head down. Don’t make waves. Just get through high school and be done with it.’ ” David Poff opens the blinds in his son’s bedroom every morning and closes them every night. He turns up the heat when it’s cold out and stops by the boy’s grave three, sometimes four times a week. When Max became a self-conscious teen, he made his dad take down the framed school pictures hanging on a wall. But since the boy’s death, David has put them all back up, displacing the “poster of a pretty girl in a bathing suit” that Max had displayed — and giving it to his friend. Max loved the Baltimore Ravens, so a Ravens blanket is draped carefully over his bed. Tucked between the bed and the wall is a spray of flowers David bought at Michaels; he changes the arrangement almost weekly to reflect the season or holiday. “Here’s his Easter balloon right here,” he said. In his suicide notes to his parents, Max apologized for being “such a failure.” He called his dad an “asshole” but also his “hero,” and said he hoped David Poff wouldn’t get into trouble because the gun belonged to him. “Momma, I know I’m mean to you sometimes, but I love you,” he wrote. The Poffs are in touch with a growing network of concerned parents whose children have been bullied in schools. A Henry County mom, Tabitha Hilliker, has contacted state Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, about sponsoring statewide anti-bullying legislation. Stanley did not return phone calls requesting a comment. Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, said he would gladly discuss the introduction of a possible bill with the parents and also hopes to beef up a state-mandated — but underfunded — increase in school counselor positions as another anti-bullying strategy. Hilliker’s daughter, an eighth-grader at Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School, was so distraught about being bullied via social media and in person at school that she tried to hang herself in her bedroom — but her sister walked in and stopped it. She’s been hospitalized twice for depression and suicidal thoughts. “The school systems aren’t doing anything, and because there’s not a law out there, there’s nothing us parents can do either,” Hilliker said. David Poff says he beats himself up for taking too many late-night work calls: stopped-up sinks and toilets; other people’s emergencies. “I wish I would have told people … that I had to go home to be with my son instead,” he said, choking up. “I just wanted to see my son in his Marine uniform and tell him, ‘I’m proud a you boy.’?” Wiping tears from his eyes, he surveys the American flag above his son’s bed. “I ain’t a drill sergeant now, am I?” on April 25, 2014.⁶