In the early 1990s, Kevin was just another young student at Dyer County High School He had rather be on the football field than in the classroom, but that didn’t stop him from his graduation in the spring of 1993.
Kevin wasn’t the Valedictorian, but was the Most Valuable Player that year. Guess which one he cherished the most.
At his side during those years were a group of boys, and a girl – now young men and woman with families – who grew up with Kevin. They went to kindergarten in the Newbern area. They threw water balloons at Halloween. They hooped and partied and planned for the future then took jobs or when off to college.
But they all stayed close only as friends can.
Three years later, those friends, the community of Newbern, and the surrounding area joined his family in a state of shock as word swept through the close knit community that Kevin had been killed in a place that many had never heard spoken.
Pfc. Kevin F. Edgin, with the Army's 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division based in Fort Drum, N.Y., died in Helmand province's Baghran Valley, Afghanistan.
It was on July 6, 2006, that Kevin died as he defended his comrades from enemy fire and gave them protection they needed for a few brief moments. When his weapon stopped firing, he dropped it and grabbed another, prior to being fatally wounded.
He was the youngest of three sons – he was 31 - and lived at home with his parents. He'd never married. He still had the same friends since kindergarten.
And it is those buddies – both male and female - who have honored their friend in remembrance each year with a memorial golf tournament in Dyersburg.
They don’t do it because he was the first solider from Dyer County to lose his life since the Vietnam War; they don’t do it because literally thousands of people attended the funeral; they don’t do it because the Army awarded him commendations and metals; they don’t even do it because Kevin played golf.
They do it because he was their friend and classmate.
If you don’t play golf, or even if you never knew Kevin, you can still help. Call Greg Garner at 731-445-0983. Money raised by Kevin’s friends is contributed each year to a College Scholarship fund in his name.
This year two students, Demetrius Wheeler and Donnie Nelson each received a $1,500 scholarship this year to assist with their college education.
We think Kevin would like that.
