Friends and family remember Jay Sybert as the kind of guy who’d go out of his way to help you – whether he knew you or not.
“He would much rather give than receive,” said his cousin, Jessica Schmidt, 23. “He was just so helpful and generous to everyone. There were a lot of people who messaged me on Facebook to tell me what a good guy he was.
“Many of them said, ‘He helped me out when he didn’t even know me, and that’s how we became friends.’ Yeah, that was Jay.”
James R. “Jay” Sybert died March 25 in an automobile accident on Hwy. 21, when an 82-year-old woman driving the wrong way in the southbound lanes struck his southbound pickup truck head-on, the Missouri State Highway Patrol reported.
Mr. Sybert was the only child of Dorothy Sybert, who was divorced from his father when Jay was a young child. He grew up among a close-knit extended family.
“Our moms are sisters. They are best friends,” said cousin Sara Schmidt, 31. “Jay was an only child, but the three of us girls were like his sisters. Lola is 26, and she was just a year ahead of him in school. In all of our childhood pictures, he and Lola are together.”
His cousins say Mr. Sybert was a lively, mischievous little boy.
“He was really smart and very precocious,” Sara said. “He loved the (Mighty Morphin’) Power Rangers; we took him to McDonald’s once to meet the Green Ranger.
“He loved listening to Garth Brooks. ‘Friends in Low Places’ was first song he knew all the words to. He’d sing it, holding this lime-green plastic guitar. He was probably about 4 or 5.”
Jessica recalls a camping trip when her Aunt Dot took Jay and the three girls, by herself, to Sam A. Baker State Park.
“She made us stay in the shallows, so all day me, Jay and Lola spent with snorkels on, digging the channel deeper. Our backs were so sunburned,” she said with a laugh.
The girls remember their cousin as a sensitive and perceptive young man.
“We were driving down Hwy. 61-67, going camping, and he kept having his mom play this song over and over,” Jessica said. “It was, ‘Don’t Take the Girl’ by Tim McGraw. He was 8, maybe 10 years old.
“I looked over at him and said, ‘Why are you so obsessed with this song?’ and he proceeded to tell me the whole meaning of the song and explain what the lyrics meant.
“I started crying. And, after that, we were all obsessed with it and listened to it the whole way down to the camping trip.”
When Mr. Sybert was about 10, the Schmidts moved to Hillsboro, while he and his mother stayed in the Arnold area. He attended Fox High School, where he participated in volleyball and cross country. He enjoyed riding BMX bikes and four-wheelers – “the faster, the better,” Sara said – and loved to go to the I-55 Speedway in Pevely to watch racing.
“He liked to sit where the mud hits you,” Sara said.
It was at Fox where he met his future wife, Danielle Weber.
“Danielle was Lola’s friend first,” Sara said. “They are still very close.”
Mr. Sybert went into the U.S. Marine Corps in 2007, where he attained the rank of corporal and worked as a mechanic. In 2012, he was discharged from the Marines and joined the U.S. Army Reserve.
Later that year, he entered the police academy at Jefferson College, graduating in April 2013.
“He was the top shooter in his police academy class,” Jessica said. “He was just an awesome marksman. He could hit any target.”
At the time of his death, he had been preparing to begin a job with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
“He was so excited to be a police officer,” Sara said. “I think it’s something he always wanted to do.”
In high school, Mr. Sybert had worked at Jiffy Lube. Since leaving the Marines, he had worked at Mungenast St. Louis Honda in St. Louis County as a mechanic.
“He was still going to classes at Jeffco in the automotive program,” Sara said. “He actually was on his way from work to class when the accident occurred.”
Jessica said her cousin’s death is the latest in a series of blows her family has endured.
“Our family has lost three young men in 10 months,” she said. “It’s almost like something is trying to tear us apart, but all it’s doing is bringing us closer together.
It’s a hard loss, because Jay was such a great person, and he’s my aunt’s only child and they were so close.
“We’ll miss him more than anything.”
Obituary information for Mr. Sybert is available through Heiligtag-Lang-Fendler Funeral Home in Arnold.
“Life Story,” posted each Saturday on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.