Those who knew Keegan Smith smile through their tears when remembering the teenager’s sheer exuberance.
“We put up a Ring camera on our front door,” said his mother, Mary Jane “M.J.” Smith of Cedar Hill. “Anytime he would go out, he’d leave a dancing video for whoever was going to check it later.
“It has helped us through, just hearing the stories from people. They say, if they were having a bad day, he would make sure that when he left you, when he walked away, you had a smile on your face.”
Keegan, who had just entered eighth grade at Northwest Valley Elementary School, was killed in what his mother called a “terrible freak UTV accident” during a Labor Day weekend camping trip with family.
“He was doing what he loved with who he loved,” she said.
M.J. said Keegan’s love for life was apparent from his earliest moments.
“He was such a happy baby, and he wanted everyone to be happy,” she said. “It’s a famous thing in the family that, when he was little, he’d see someone upset and then try to do what he could to make you laugh, be silly, surprise you. He loved surprising people.”
Keegan grew up in the blended family created when M.J., 32, married Ricky Smith, 38, the father of three sons, in 2015.
“Ricky and I have been together 11 years, and married for six. He adopted Keegan when we got married,” M.J. said. “He is the only dad Keegan’s ever known.”
Keegan got along well with his brothers Evan, 17, Ethan, 16, and Elijah, 14.
“He and Elijah are only nine months apart in age,” M.J. said. “Elijah could come up with any scheme and Keegan could make sure they executed it. Ethan was who Keegan would hang with to relax and chill. And he looked up to Evan. He wanted to act like him, dress like him.”
Until the mullet phase, that is.
“Keegan decided he wanted to have a mullet, and he grew a wonderful one. He was so proud of it. He’d get up an hour and a half ahead of time so he could make sure his mullet was on point for the day.”
Even as a small child, Keegan’s outgoing nature was apparent.
“Oh, he was a talker. Teachers would always say they couldn’t get him to shut up,” M.J. said. “We’d tell him, ‘You have to be quiet when the teacher talks.’ And he would actually get tears in his eyes, and say, ‘I’m just a little kid but I got an awful lot to say!’”
Although he enjoyed spending time with his family and friends, Keegan also liked to be solitary, especially if it meant spending time in nature.
“He liked anything outdoors, camping, fishing, hunting,” his mother said. “He would do a lot of stuff by himself. He set traps to catch animals so he could study them. He caught lizards, butterflies – he could catch any creature out there.”
Keegan also liked hunting for food.
“He hunted squirrels right from his bedroom window,” M.J. said with a laugh. “He’d skin it and have his dad grill it so he could eat it for dinner.”
But not all animals were for eating.
“He had two lizards he kept as pets,” M.J. said. “One we bought for him, and the other he talked Ricky’s best friend out of. We had visited and were leaving, and here this little kid comes walking out of the house with this big old terrarium. We said, ‘Keegan, what is that?’ and he said, ‘He told me I could have it! Hurry up before he changes his mind.’”
Keegan enjoyed one-on-one outings with his dad.
“He loved to have a ‘man’s day,’ as he called it,” M.J. said. “They would go shopping and buy stuff I wouldn’t let him have, or they’d go out to lunch, especially during quarantine. Ricky works nights; he’d come home from work and they’d go to breakfast.”
Keegan played baseball before finding a passion for wrestling.
“He lost a (wrestling) tournament early on, and told us it was because he had wasted too much time on baseball,” his mother said. “He was a 100-pound novice state champ his rookie year in sixth grade.”
Keegan also liked playing video games.
“He’d always have an excuse for why he lost, though,” M.J. said. “It was a glitch in the game, or the computer was lagging – even though we have high-speed internet. We teased him about it.”
M.J. said Keegan was never shy about being in pictures.
“I’m so thankful for all the pictures I have,” she said. “You never had to fight him to get one; he would take a picture with anybody. That’s the advice I would give people: Take all the pictures. You won’t regret it.”
M.J., a Cedar Hill native, who has worked at Sorellis’ Italian Restaurant since she was 14, said it’s “amazing” how the community has rallied around her family.
“There’s no way I can reach out individually to everyone who has called, texted, sent cards, dropped off things at home and at my work,” she said. “You always think your kid is cool and everybody loves him, but the support we’ve gotten shows that yes, they really did.
“We’ve had people who have little boys tell us Keegan was exactly the kind of son they hope to raise: an all-around kind, generous, funny kid. They definitely broke the mold with him, that’s for sure.”
“Life Story,” posted Saturdays on Leader Publications’ website, focuses on one individual’s impact on his or her community.