South MS mourns teen killed in highway crash. ‘It’s hard to wrap your mind around’
If Justin Schielder had lived, he would probably be fishing.
He might have bought his own land and shot his first deer.
If he had lived, those that loved the 17-year-old from Carriere expect he would have stood firm in his faith and prayed hard for the people who loved him.
But Justin died last week after a pickup truck crossed the center line of Highway 11 and struck his Toyota Scion. His family, his friends and Pearl River County are shaken, hurt and mourning his tragic loss.
“It’s hard to wrap your mind around not being able to hold him and hug him,” his mother, Marilyn Schielder, said this week. Her son was kind. He was reliable. He was easygoing.
“We called him our grandfather,” she said, because “he’s an old soul.”
He lived all his life in Pearl River County, finished a degree from Pearl River Central High School in December and had just started at Pearl River Community College. He loved fishing so much that he worried if he got married, he might have to stop. He liked hunting and welding. He attended West Union Baptist Church, worked with the shoebox ministry, devoted himself to his youth group and prayed often for his friends to succeed.
He would have turned 18 in March, and walked at graduation in May. Last year, he won Angler of the Year – “the highlight of his life,” his mother said. He had not yet shot a deer, but he wanted to, one day.
He would often text people bible verses or Christian music. He worked at Sonic so he could pay for fishing supplies and days on the water with his friends and his father. His teachers loved him, his mother said, because he would not put up with misbehaving.
“That’s just who he was,” she said. “A good old country boy.”
“He was just one of those kids who loved big,” said Austin Alexander, the principal at Pearl River Central, where students and teachers have faced a heavy few days. On Friday, students stood hand-in-hand with heads bowed in the school’s courtyard to remember their classmate in prayer and silence. The seniors asked to pray together again on Wednesday.
“He could get along with anybody,” Alexander said. “He could light up a room.”
He left behind three siblings, his parents, grandmothers, aunts and uncles. So many people came to his funeral on Sunday that the crowd was standing room only. Donations poured in, and every part of his service from the headstone to the flowers on his casket was covered by other people.
The way Justin Schielder died is enough to make any family sick with grief. But like her son, Marilyn Schielder is strong in her faith. She is not angry.
“It’s more of a sadness,” she said, her voice breaking.
