The heroic death of a Fayetteville high school student is remembered with award
A Fayetteville teenager who drowned at a South Carolina state park last month will be honored by his high school with an annual award in his name, officials said Thursday.
Tre’Sean Snow, 16, a rising junior at Douglas Byrd High School, drowned at Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, on June 6 while trying to save another child, according to the Georgetown County Coroner’s Office.
Principal Kenneth Williams said Thursday that the school has created the Tre’Sean Snow Courage Award in his honor.
Snow’s guardian and cousin, Kiara McPhaul, 32, said in a phone interview that Tre’Sean was on a day trip to the beach with his two best friends when he noticed a 13-year-old girl struggling on her boogie board and swam out to help. The girl was saved, but Tre’Sean was swept under by a current, McPhaul said.
It was an act of heroism that most adults would not be capable of, she noted.
“I respect how selfless he was,” she said. “That was just his nature — to help anybody that he could that was in need.”
'The kid was different'
Tre’Sean had encountered many tragedies in the past five years, but that never stopped him from being a source of light for others, his loved ones said.
His aunt and mother died less than two months apart in 2018, leaving Tre’Sean and his two older sisters in the care of other family members before McPhaul took custody of them, she said.
McPhaul moved her family from Raeford to Fayetteville two years ago, she said. The change was hard on Tre'Sean. Family friend Thomas Jackson came into his life in 2020 after Tre’Sean’s uncle passed, introducing the teen to the world of car shows.
“He kind of just stayed attached to my side for a few months after that, learning about the different car meets and learning about YouTube and making money on social media,” Jackson said.
Jackson runs TK’s Garage, a YouTube channel he began in 2016 that focuses on the car community.
Tre’Sean fell in love with the car community, specifically with Dodge cars, and Jackson sometimes took him to a nearby drag strip in his Challenger, he said.
“He kind of was addicted to it at that point,” he said.
Jackson also helped the teen get involved in wrestling.
“I started taking him on the weekends to these open classes or training,” Jackson said. “It was like a feeder program for the local high schools to have wrestlers.”
Jackson, a defense contractor who does not have children, said what impressed him most about Tre’Sean was his positive attitude and determination to build a great life for himself. He said the teen dreamt of building a home for the disabled in honor of his disabled sister and joining the JROTC program at Douglas Byrd.
“The kid was different,” Jackson said. “He had aspirations and things that he wanted to do different.”
Jackson found out from his ex-wife and Tre'Sean's family about the teen’s death, but it wasn’t until he spoke to the coroner in Georgetown County that he heard how Tre’Sean died, he said.
That knowledge inspired him to speak out, and Jackson published a video to his 106,000 subscribers on YouTube, sharing Tre’Sean’s story and encouraging the car community to attend the teen’s June 14 funeral in Raeford.
"That kid gave up everything to save a little girl," Jackson said.
Honoring a sacrifice
News of Tre’Sean’s final act spread, and members of the Hoke County Sheriff’s Office and the Raeford Fire Department, Jackson and McPhaul said.
Deputies attended Tre’Sean’s funeral and closed intersections from the funeral home to the cemetery, while fire trucks lined up to pay tribute to Tre’Sean, Jackson said. According to McPhaul, members of the car community escorted the family to and from the funeral home.
It was also at Tre’Sean’s funeral that his loved ones learned about the Douglas Byrd High School's Tre’Sean Snow Courage Award, McPhaul said. Principal Williams said Thursday that the details have not been finalized, but it will be presented to a student during the annual senior awards ceremony and recipients will be determined through faculty nominations and votes.
Tre’Sean’s loved ones said they want people to remember the teen’s spirit.
“He was still positive and always looking for the better aspect of life,” Jackson said. “The community lost somebody that I sense was going to make a massive difference in their community, just because of how huge this kid’s character was.”
It’s a loss that will forever be felt by his family, McPhaul said.
“I want people to know how much we’re going to miss him and how this has put a hole in our heart,” she said. “He was just a good kid.”
Public safety reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville teen to be remembered with Douglas Byrd annual award
