A Beaufort County teen died in a car crash. This is how his father honored his memory
Kevin Morazan could have played football.
He was strong and liked to run and was full of energy to burn, friends and family said. There could have been a spot for the sophomore on the Whale Branch Early College High School football team.
Instead, he stepped into a cumbersome, muggy costume each Friday night to become the Warriors mascot.
“He decided to make people laugh,” said Kevin’s uncle, Jorge Morazan.
Kevin, 17, died in a car crash Tuesday when the SUV he was driving left the road and rolled multiple times. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
His father, Carlos Morazan, said he wants the incident to be a reminder to wear seat belts. And he wanted Kevin to know he supported his decision to choose the costume over football pads.
On Friday, Carlos stepped into the Warriors outfit in his son’s place for homecoming.
He strode in costume to midfield at halftime with Kevin’s family and friends, blew kisses and mimed hugs and watched as balloons were released into the air. He walked to the home stands and comforted Whale Branch cheerleaders crying on the track.
“Kevin, he loved everybody,” Carlos told them.
The act wasn’t easy, but a “way I can prove to my son I loved him so much,” the father said after the ceremony.
Whale Branch students paid $2 for the privilege of wearing jeans Friday and gave the money to Kevin’s family. Many students who didn’t wear jeans still gave.
Administrators held a moment of silence during a school pep rally and again before the homecoming football game. The soccer team signed a ball to give Kevin’s family.
Whale Branch senior Chyanne Turner and James Altobello stood on the black chain link fence and in black ink on their cheeks and arms had written “#LLK”— a popular social media tag this week standing for “Long live Kevin.”The slogan was seen on homemade T-shirts Friday night.
Classmates signed a card for another student injured in the crash and dropped it in his mailbox, Turner said. The student was released from the hospital and visited Carlos at his home before the football game, Carlos said.
Turner was Kevin’s neighbor in Grays Hill and friend since seventh grade. Kevin taught her to swim this summer by pushing her off the dock and staying by her side.
He worked construction with his father during summer break and sent Turner pictures of the houses he worked on, she said.
Kevin played basketball and enjoyed running. He delivered when his friends needed a laugh, no method too silly, Altobello said.
He’d jump off of a porch and sprawl on the ground for no reason, or accept someone’s challenge to fight a tree.
“He was always there, always making somebody laugh,” Turner said. “He was a very uplifting spirit.”
As Kevin’s family searched for photos of him this week in their Grays Hill home, they found a sheet of paper Kevin once had hanging on his door. On the paper was Kevin’s name and photo and a charge to his graduating Whale Branch Middle School class in 2017 from New Covenant Fellowship Ministries in Burton.
The charge includes a list of guidelines for life and accompanying Bible verses.
“I was created a wonderful original and I refuse to die a cheap copy,” the paper begins.
The discovery helped comfort the family this week and offered a side of Kevin some weren’t aware of, his father and uncle said.
“We didn’t know we had an angel,” Jorge said. “He came to show us a lesson about life.”
Funeral arrangements for Kevin Morazan
Visitation will be held at Chisholm Galloway Funeral Home on Tuesday starting at 3 p.m. A funeral service will be held at Centro de Alabanza (Praise Assembly of God) at 800 Parris Island Gateway from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. Wednesday, followed by a burial service at Anderson Funeral Home at 611 Robert Smalls Parkway. All are welcome, the family says.
This story was originally published September 29, 2018 at 2:30 PM.