Manhattan Family Honors Late Son's Memory With L-W West Scholarship

NEW LENOX, IL — A Manhattan mother is taking steps to honor her son's memory and promote mental health awareness, with the establishment of a scholarship for Lincoln-Way West High School seniors.

Shelly Lewis' son Jackson would have been graduating from West this year, ready to take his next steps in life. The soccer player and avid runner seemed to be a happy kid, his mom says, when at just 15 years old he took his own life. His death in June 2020 shook their family to its core.

"We didn’t see any signs, red flags, nothing that indicated he was depressed," Shelly Lewis said. "He was a happy kid. ... It was completely out of left field. We didn’t see it coming, it was devastating for us."

Jackson was active in sports, and social. In junior high, he ran track and cross country. He played soccer as a freshman at West. He had a lot of friends, Lewis said, and everything seemed to be going well for him, until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. With shutdown and restrictions in place, Jackson lost his connections and his outlet in sports. Even with the changes in his routines, though, no one knew of his suicidal ideation.

"We didn’t see anything unusual," Lewis said. "It was just a complete shock, to even his closest friends. You think if something was wrong, he would have confided in a friend, but they were all just completely shocked."

Jackson's childhood friend Emmett Thompson remembers him as "always smiling ... a very positive person, very enjoyable to be around."

The day he learned of Jackson's death, "it was one of the worst feelings," Thompson said.

"That was not a good day," Thompson said. "I had never experienced anything like that before. It’s different when it’s someone young. It’s different when it’s a kid who’s got so much more left to live."

Since his death, Jackson's family and Thompson are continuing efforts to memorialize Jackson in the New Lenox and Manhattan communities, with the creation of the Jackson Lewis Foundation scholarship. In its inaugural year, it will be awarded to two Lincoln-Way West graduating seniors.

The scholarship will be the group's second effort to honor Jackson. Shortly after his death, Thompson started the Jog for Jackson 5K, held at Manhattan's Round Barn Farm. Thompson and Jackson had run cross country together in junior high, where Thompson was older than Jackson, but they pulled Jackson up a level to run with them, "because he was good," Thompson said. The Round Barn Farm hosted their team's home meets, he said.

"It just was a perfect kind of way to remember him," Thompson told Patch.

Thompson, now a freshman at Purdue University double-major majoring in professional flight and aviation management, has also helped spearhead the creation of the Jackson Lewis Foundation, Lewis said. The foundation is a nonprofit aimed at helping to raise awareness for and help combat suicide in kids 18 years and younger. It's based on three pillars: awareness, education and research. The foundation will focus on kids with mental health issues, offering outreach programs with featured speakers at area schools.

"It was something my husband and I thought of, wanted to do. But Emmett had the motivation and drive to get it done. My husband and I are just helping him along with fundraising events."

Lewis and Jackson's father Christopher are funding the two, $2,000 scholarships; they contributed the necessary funds to the foundation. Recipients will be selected based on academic achievement, extracurricular involvement, and a 500-word essay on how mental health has affected them personally, as well as what they feel can be done to raise awareness and combat stigma, Lewis said. All seniors at Lincoln-Way West were given copies of the application, but if one is needed, they can ask administrators at the school. Completed applications can be sent to thelewisfoundation59@gmail.com. Deadline for submission is March 9.

Their own son might have been seeking scholarships just like this one.

"... We wanted to honor him," Lewis said.

Click here to find out more about the Jackson Lewis Foundation.