A week ago, they were strangers — the students who attend Wayne County’s largest public high school and the roughly 600 teenagers walking the halls of a facility that serves 13 “Down East” communities in Carteret County.
In Pikeville, they had never heard the names Jonathan McInnis, Noah Styron, Michael Shepard and Jacob Taylor.
But then a plane crashed, and in an instant, the many connections between Charles B. Aycock and East Carteret came into focus.
Aycock Principal Tod Morgan told his students that he grew up in Carteret County, that he attended East Carteret’s rival and the “Down East” community was a lot like Pikeville — a tight-knit family where seemingly everyone knows everyone.
He shared with them that East Carteret’s principal, Jay Westbrook, was a CBA graduate.
And when he saw, on the news and social media pages, the picture of the teenagers killed Sunday — dressed in camouflage after a weekend duck hunting trip — it reminded him of the students at the rural high school he now leads.
It was sobering thinking just how easily the tragedy could have been inflicted upon the Aycock family instead.
“Imagine if we had four of our students pass away in some sort of horrific accident,” Morgan said. “We would all be hurting. We would need support.”
More than 100 miles away from a community still coming to terms with an immeasurable loss, the Charles B. Aycock student body took action.
They created hand-drawn cards and hand-written letters of condolence that Morgan will deliver to East Carteret Friday.
“I’ve got a stack of hundreds of cards,” Morgan said. “The whole building, teachers and students, the mindset has been, ‘What can we do?’”
They signed a poster — a tribute to the young lives lost — during Thursday’s basketball games, with one member of the CBA cheerleading squad fighting back tears as she added her name.
They wore camouflage to pay tribute to the passion the four students who lost their lives had for hunting.
They removed their hats and bowed their heads — honoring a moment of silence held before the varsity boys tipped off.
“And for kids they didn’t even know,” Morgan said. “Our student body has just been phenomenal. Class. Respect. Love. It’s special.”
In an era where young people seem increasingly isolated, the teenagers in attendance at Thursday’s games were noticeably connected to one another.
They grasped the gravity of the moment — something that Morgan said humbled him all week.
And CBA’s new principal recognized something else, too — about the kind of education that can be delivered to young people in moments when a textbook just can’t cut it.
His students, he said, learned some of the most valuable lessons of their lives this week.
“Life is precious. We aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. So, enjoy every minute and be servants to others. It takes all of us to get through this thing called life,” Morgan said. “Down there it’s “Down East Strong” and I really think our students have learned that we really are stronger together.”
It could have easily been just another series of basketball games — capped off by another blowout win delivered by the red-hot Charles B. Aycock varsity boys.
But years from now, none of those students will remember who the high-point man was or what the scoreboard read when the clock hit zero.
Instead, they will remember the four teenagers who lost their lives in a tragic plane crash — how they looked, decked out in camo, like some of their classmates.
They won’t forget about the cards or letters they created — or that poster that will forever bear their signatures.
And Morgan’s hope is that Thursday will serve as another important lesson learned at Charles B. Aycock — that being there for one’s neighbors, even if those neighbors live more than 100 miles away, is more important than a fleeting victory on the hardwoods.
