Good kids. Good families. Tragedy

This one hurts.

A lifetime in the newsroom has shown me a great deal of tragedy, up closer than most people could stand.

And then sometimes you know the people involved. They represent the best our community has to offer. And the only thing you can think is that we really need to rally around these people.

Austin McLoud died in a car wreck early Sunday on Hilton Head.

I didn’t know Austin, a 21-year-old University of South Carolina student. But he was a little boy when his daddy, Don McLoud, came to work at our newspaper as city editor.

For seven years, I could hear Don’s deep voice as he patiently answered every kind of question that flows into this office: why did you do this, why didn’t you do that?

I know that Austin’s mother, Diana, teaches at Hilton Head Elementary School, and they say she’s great at it.

“He loved this island,” she kept saying softly on Sunday afternoon.

She said Austin loved the water, and working at Outside Hilton Head.

And he was a runner. He ran cross country for the mighty Seahawks at Hilton Head Island High School. My son was on the team a few years back, so I know how tight the bond is between the kids and the parents and the coaches — and the underlying hope that all that effort would help them long after the muddy spikes are gathering dust in a closet.

I didn’t know the driver of the car either. But Jack Manesiotis, 22, is also one of those runners, one of the best. He was twice our newspaper’s cross country athlete of the year, led his team to three state championships and won the individual state title one year.

He was born here. And I know his father as well. Mike Manesiotis is a business owner, but I know him as the RBC Heritage Presented by Boeing’s general chairman of volunteers, a huge job. He has given to the community in other ways as well, as a leader at the Rec Center, the county parks department, the high school booster club and the middle school’s School Improvement Council.

At cross country meets, he was that dad who set up a tent for the team early in the morning, and even had sides on it and a heater going when it was needed. The kids called it Camp Hilton Head.

Mike and Sally reared good kids. My wife taught one of them in middle school and still remembers him as a great person. I once wrote about their sister, also a star runner.

I do not know the details of the car wreck. I know that Jack faces criminal charges. And I know that it’s all tragic.

We need to pray for both families.

This story was originally published May 8, 2017 at 11:33 AM with the headline "Good kids. Good families. Tragedy."