By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
ROCKWELL ó Friends of a teenager killed in an ATV accident Thursday have created a memorial where he died.
Sawyer Kepley’s friends have created a cross fashioned from skateboards.
Sawyer was an avid skateboarder according to family members. His uncle, Chuck Kepley, described the 2008 East Rowan High School graduate as loving to be outdoors.
The memorial is on Reid Road, a subdivision road off Holshouser Road near Shive Elementary School.
Heather Bolden, a Reid Road resident, said Sawyer’s friends got permission from the land owners and erected the memorial.
Bolden said her family has installed a permanent mail box where Sawyers friends can leave messages, notes and photos which will be turned over to his family.
Bolden said hundreds of kids have come to the memorial site where the 19-year-old died around 8 p.m. Thursday.
Bolden’s mother, Sherry Reid, lived close to where the accident occurred.
Her mother was watching TV and heard the ATV go by a minute or so before 8 p.m. as one of her TV shows was going off.
A couple minutes later, a woman driving down Reid Road spotted the wreck and stopped at Reid’s home. She called 911 and also called her daughter, fearful that it might be Bolden’s son, Andrew Sinclair.
Bolden said she grabbed her keys and started out the door to go to the wreck scene, when her son walked up.
They drove to the wreck site.
Kepley was apparently killed instantly. Calvin Reid, Bolden’s stepfather, pulled the ATV, which was still running off the teen.
Bolden said several of Sawyer’s friends, who had been waiting for him at home, came looking for him and came upon the accident scene, not realizing what had happened.
Sawyer, the son of Aaron Dean and Cindy Miller Kepley of Rockwell, was buried Sunday at Ursinus United Church of Christ Cemetery. He was an organ donor.
Contact Jessie Burchette at 704-797-4254.