South Carolina honors slain football player one mile at a time
DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - South Carolina is naming part of Highway 78 after a Dorchester County native who died in a shooting at the University of Virginia late last year.
Lavel Davis Jr. was a wide receiver with the UVA Cavaliers when he and two other football players were shot and killed in November on a school bus returning from a field trip. Davis was also a graduate of Woodland High School.
“His future had no ceiling,” Rep. Chris Murphy, District 98 and one of the sponsors of the bill, said.
Earlier this month, state lawmakers ed a bill for the South Carolina Department of Transportation to name the portion of Highway 78 beginning at mile point 12.79 to 22.39 Lavel ‘Tyler’ Norman Davis Jr. Memorial Highway in his honor.
“He was an individual, everybody that you talk to, he was just one of the nicest people on Earth,” Murphy said. “Always had a smile on his face. And for him, for us to have lost him at such a young age is just an incredible tragedy.”
His former high school football coach and the assistant athletic director at Woodland High School, Eddie Ford, says the last few months have been hard, but each day gets a little easier.
He was asked what this dedication means to him.
“It means the world to this community,” Ford said. “It means the world to the University of Virginia, to Woodland High School, to where he’s from in Ridgeville that everything that’s good and right, what he stood for, is going to be living on forever.”
Dorchester District 4 issued the following statement in response to the dedication:
To have the State and all other constituents recognize Lavel Tyler Norman Davis, Jr. at such a young age speaks volumes of what he exemplified as a student-athlete. This is an honor and a blessing for the district, community, and the town of Ridgeville to have a highway named in his honor and to be recognized Statewide. Lavel exemplified high character, high integrity, served as a servant leader and role model. On behalf of everyone in Dorchester School District Four and his community, this recognition means the world to us.
The dedication ceremony will be at Woodland High School on Saturday from noon to 2 p.m.
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