BY JOHN BRICE
THE LAFAYETTE SUN
LAFAYETTE — Family members, friends and community leaders gathered March 25 at Mt. Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church for a homegoing service to memorialize 15-year old Zantavious Daeshawn Patton of LaFayette. A student at LaFayette High School, Patton, known as “Zan,” lost his life in a car crash Friday, March 21, when the 2014 Nissan Altima he was traveling in as a passenger veered off the roadway and overturned. The Rev. Michael Stiggers from Powell Chapel United Methodist Church, Kelsey Barnes and New Dimensions Worship Center Bishop Donald Lancaster officiated the service.
Chambers County School District Superintendent Dr. Sharon Weldon addressed the attendees in their time of grief.
“I have been in the school system a long time, and I have got to say that this is never supposed to happen,” Weldon said. “The bible tells me, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.’ But there is not one single person sitting here today that is not wanting something. And that something… is to want to go back. To hear that laugh, to see that smile or to be standing in the office. I don’t want to get him in trouble, in the office and hear him asking for candy. Because he knew exactly where the candy was, in Ms. Brock-Johnson’s office.
“Believing that somebody is not okay makes us want. It makes us want that person back. While that can’t happen, what we have got to do is we have got to make sure that we are celebrating that person that we love so much. You know, I am going to tell you that I am for Auburn but I am going to be hollering out ‘roll tide’ just because that is what he would want. Celebrate who he was and be grateful because of who he was. That is how we really celebrate his memory. I am praying for the family, I am praying for his friends as well.”
Barnes delivered the eulogy later in the service.
“I am humbled and honored yet saddened for this opportunity,” he said. “To Reverend Stiggers, to Dr. Moore, to Pastor Green, to all of the clergy, I am humbled that Ms. Natasha would consider me worthy of this solemn occasion. I am just going to keep it [short]; I don’t feel like celebrating. It is my prayer that I will eventually get there. But in this, I agree a 1,000% with Dr. Weldon. We should not be here for this. This is not part of God’s original design and that is why it hurts so bad. That is why it will hurt. Barnes ended his eulogy by telling Patton’s mother that he is praying for her and has no idea of the unimaginable loss she is enduring.
