Today, I had to go to a funeral. As you can probably guess the person who died was called James. James was a 2008 graduate of Gering High School and a student in my American Goverment class his senior year.

From what I understand, last Sunday night James ran an errand to the local Wal-Mart store for his mom. When he came out of the store, he got into a fight with another former Gering student. The fight was broken up in the parking lot by other customers and both James and the other former student drove off the parking lot. It appears that what happened next is that they drove down 33rd Street in Scottsbluff and that a second altercation occurred at 33rd and Avenue D. During the second altercation, a knife was pulled out on James and he was stabbed at least ten times, of which two stab wounds penetrated his heart. James died not long after arriving at the hospital.

The former student who killed James, Arte Lowery, has been charged with second degree murder. Arte’s brother Joseph has also been charged with trying to cover up the crime and disposing of evidence. This whole event has been truly awful. It was so sad today to see James’ mother and family go through the grief of having to hold a funeral for a son and close family member.

While James was no angel, I always thought of him as basically a good guy who sometimes makes mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes in life and I knew the James had recognized he had made mistakes. At the time he died, he was doing pretty well in his life, had a steady job and a girlfriend, and had recently bought a new truck. He did not deserve to be killed by some punk who did not like James.