BUCKHANNON — Confident, loving, adventurous.

 

A happy-go-lucky teenager who was reluctant to ever sit still.

 

A pure-hearted person who couldn’t abide injustice and was deeply concerned with equality.Talented, naturally blessed and almost always exhibiting a positive outlook on life.

Goal-oriented, intelligent and highly attuned to the people and the world around him. 

A stellar Buckhannon-Upshur High School soccer player, who also ran track and field for a few years and clocked faster times when he was running as a part of a relay rather than by himself. 

They could go on, but those are just some of the ways the friends and family of 19-year-old Matthew McCoy described him Monday as they sat around the back patio of the family’s home on West Lincoln Way, trying to digest the tragedy of Matthew’s shocking death, which happened Thursday, June 15, in Fort Bragg, Calif., a northern coastal town in Mendicino County. 

Matthew and his brother, 22-year-old Michael McCoy, had been on a cross-country road trip with their friends, 20-year-old Servando Arredondo and 19-year-old Elijah Cerchiai. It wasn’t a spur of the moment thing — Michael, who graduated from West Virginia University in May, had been planning it for over a year. The four set out in Michael’s truck on June 5 and had planned to return today, June 21.

 

Read the rest of the story by Katie Kuba of The Record Delta HERE.