13 Year Old Nicholas Kelos Junior Takes His Own Life After Enduring Years Of Relentless Bullying; Quit Football To Join Band And Fellow Students Falsely Assumed He Was Gay

The Ohio Beacon Journal reports that on February 23rd, 13 year old Nicholas Kelo Jr. took his own life. His mother, Jacqueline found him lying on the living room floor. She called 911 and emergency personal responded, taking him to nearby Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital. He was then transported by helicopter to Akron Children's Hospital, but the grade eight student could not be saved, and he died from a single self-inflicted gunshot, fired from a handgun kept in the family’s safe. His parents – who are divorced – decided to honour a wish Nicholas had made, and donated nine of the boy’s organs. Nick was bullied, relentlessly, for years, and his mother believes that led to his death. Nick played football in middle school but gave up the sport this year to participate in high school band, and according to his mother, the switch, resulted in silly rumours, some suggesting erroneously that anyone who would prefer to play the tenor sax rather than tossing a football must be gay. “After that, it [the bullying] spiralled out of control,'' she said. One such incident allegedly happened on a school bus following a football game, explained the mother of another Rittman teenager who said her son is also a victim of bullying. During the incident, Nick allegedly became the victim of an older student who was ''glicking'' — forcibly spitting on him. Jacqueline Kelo knew something was bothering her son when he came home, but the eighth-grader refused to share with his mother the details — telling her that he would handle it himself. The parents became aware of it only after their son's death. Jacqueline said it did not surprise her that her son kept his pain to himself. Nick saw himself as his mother's protector. ''He was the man of the house,'' the single mother said. Several other Rittman parents have said online and during interviews that they had complained to the schools about bullying with little or no response, Jacqueline Kelo herself saying she had been to the high school twice since the start of the school year. ''What we never realized until now is that we were not the only ones having problems,'' Jacqueline Kelo said. ''We never knew how widespread it was. When told of the complaints expressed by the Kelos and others about bullying, Rittman High School Principal Brett Lanz said that he was saddened by Nick's death, and that ''I feel like . . .everything [bullying issues and other concerns] that is brought to my attention I deal with or respond in some way. As a school administrator . . .you ask the same questions that everybody else asks — Are we doing enough? How more do we support students? The school becomes a filter for a lot of things these days.'' Superintendent Jon Ritchie, whom the Kelos commend (Jacqueline suggests Ritchie did not know how bad the problem was), in an attempt to help the school system, which has an anti-bullying program at the elementary level and has added counsellors in some buildings, has established a fund in Nick's name to help with character education in the district. As well, Ritchie said an anti-bullying program will be added to the curriculum in sixth through twelfth grade. ''We are going to teach them about compassion and empathy and how to be sensitive to other people's needs,'' Ritchie said. ''I think if we reach the time in our schools and in our society where people generally care about other people, the bullying issue could disappear. The people who are kind and respectful and really truly care about their neighbours, their community members, their friends generally try to do what's right and try to be there for people. We need to teach our young adults and children to care and be more compassionate about their fellow students. If we can create that kind of environment in the Rittman schools and in the Rittman community — I know this much — it will be a much better place to live and raise a family.'' Last Thursday evening, there was a memorial service at the high school in honour of Nick, as well as one that took place Sunday. Nick, according to his mother, had worked so hard to earn a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do and he held a red-black belt in kumdo. Recently, the Kelos had to have Nick's IQ tested for a program at school, and his mother teasingly refused to tell her son that he had scored 152, which is classified as superior intelligence. “Your head would never fit through the door if you knew,'' she joked with him. She said that he was an inventor, and that he was curious about how to obtain patents for things his inventions, such as a waffle fork to remove hot food from a toaster and an incinerator trash can. Nick and his mother had planned to travel. About the time Nick would have finished high school, Jacqueline Kelo would have been completing her Ph.D. in political science and the two had decided they would go to Italy to visit relatives.