Students drown after leaving camp during night, launching boats into river
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By CARLA K. JOHNSON
of The Associated Press
Posted Nov 14, 2008 @ 09:02 PM
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ALGONQUIN — Three Chicago high schoolers on a leadership retreat for young black men drowned early Friday after they sneaked away from their camp beds in the middle of the night and launched paddle boats into a fast-moving river, not knowing the boats' floor plugs had been removed for the winter.
Water rushed into the holes, swamping the boats in the Fox River and dumping the teens in the swift current of 42-degree water.
Chaperones at the retreat were likely asleep when the students left camp, said John Greene, battalion chief of the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Protection District.
"Shenanigans," Greene said. "That's what it looks like."
According to preliminary reports, as many as 16 students left the camp dorm, but it was not immediately clear how many teens were in the water, said Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Stacey Solano. The agency's conservation police were investigating.
Thirty-one boys - sophomores, juniors and seniors from North Lawndale College Prep - were at Camp Algonquin on a school trip organized with the Georgia-based leadership group VisionQuest International, said Chicago Public Schools spokesman Mike Vaughn. The eight-day retreat was to end Friday.
"These are kids that have potential, potential to be leaders," Vaughn said.
Their school on Chicago's West Side serves an overwhelmingly black and poor student population. It's a charter school that aims to prepare students from communities with few resources to succeed in college.
The McHenry County coroner's office identified the dead students as Melvin Choice Jr., 17; Jimmy Avant, 18; and Adrian Jones, 16.
Avant's mother remembered her son as a gifted athlete and a generous person. Sharon Gowdy, who is out of work, said her son often tried to help her with money.
"He was so nice, so giving. Just his personality. He was good inside out. Words just can't describe him," said Gowdy, 51.
Lt. Julie Didier, a spokeswoman for the Algonquin-Lake in the Hills Fire Protection District, said the swift currents and debris made it difficult for them to remove the bodies from the river near the camp, about 40 miles northwest of Chicago.
"We definitely do not want to play games with the river," she said.
Police responded about 2 a.m. to a 911 call that three teens were reported missing at the camp.
Didier said the students took six boats on the water. All the boats had been recovered by Friday afternoon.
Authorities said after one boat quickly took on water, at least one student on shore went into the river to try to help, but ended up drowning as well.
Didier said the three students' bodies were found about 50 feet from the water's bank in 8 to 10 feet of water. At the water's edge, signs warn: "Danger. Riverfront. Keep Out."
Robert Williams told the Chicago Tribune that his son, who survived, tried unsuccessfully to help other teens.
"He did all he could to try to save them, but he couldn't do it," Williams said.
The boats on the river were taken out of service for the season by having their bottom plugs removed, Didier said.
At the Chicago school, counselors were on hand to help students. The school was open earlier Friday although most students went home. Didier said two of the boys who died were seniors and one was a junior.
"It's a very sad, somber grief-stricken day," Vaughn said. "This is absolutely heartbreaking."
Student Kyra Brown, 14, paused to remember Choice.
"He read me a story that he wrote and got an 'A' on. It was beautiful," she said.
The surviving students who returned to Chicago were taken to a church not far from their school for a service.
The bus ride back was somber, said driver Willis Falls.
"They were very quiet, in fact, I didn't hear anybody say anything," he said.
The McHenry County Conservation District owns the 116-acre camp and the YMCA of McHenry County leases and operates it.
Lynda Fauser, who runs the camp, said the groups that come there are required to provide their own supervision.
She said the chaperones and students were all in one building. She said the group had four supervisors - well within the camp's required 8-to-1 ratio of supervisors per students.
However, Vaughn said there were actually nine chaperones on the trip - four from the school, one administrator and four from VisionQuest.
Paul Murray, chief volunteer officer at the YMCA, said four adults stayed in the same building with the students, another four stayed in another location on site and a fifth was off site.
Murray said the students and adults stayed in a bunkhouse with several rooms opening up to common area, although he did not know the details of the sleeping arrangements.
VisionQuest founder Walter Earl Fluker, who attended the early days of the retreat, said his staff members were grief-stricken.
"I think teenagers and adults make terrible mistakes, innocent as they might be, we make terrible mistakes," Fluker said. "I do think in many ways they were forming the kind of community we would hope for and I hope this tragedy doesn't prevent these young men from continuing on."
Vaughn said the school district would investigate how the trip was organized and chaperoned. The YMCA also planned a review.
