Expelled Tennessee Rep's Friend Was Shot Dead--Then Set Ablaze
Former Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson lost a high school friend—as well as a former mentor—to gun violence. The issue remains deeply personal.When measured by the way he brightened kids’ lives, Larry Thorn was a figure of vital importance at the A. Maceo Walker Middle School in Memphis, Tennessee.
“As a school secretary, Larry Thorn was often one of the first faces that greeted our students,” reads a statement by the Memphis-Shelby County Schools. “His radiant spirit welcomed everyone into the building with warmth.”
But Thorn was not at work when he was fatally shot, so his killing after leaving his home on the night of Jan. 9 received none of the attention that would have accompanied a school shooting. Even with the added horror of him then being set on fire outside an abandoned church, his still-unsolved killing was tallied as just more gun violence in a city with a murder rate 10 times that of New York.
The loss was monumental for the family and friends who staged a candlelight vigil in Thorn’s memory outside the Crystal Palace skating rink on the night of Jan. 20. A former classmate at Mitchell High School arrived with something that provided at least a modicum of comfort to mourners doubly chilled by the killing and the temperature dipping into the low 30s.
“He bought hot chocolate,” Thorn’s mother, Lavonda Henderson, told the Daily Beast.
The classmate was Justin Pearson. He had been a sophomore when he announced at a school board meeting that he and many of their fellow students were not being provided with textbooks. He said that he hoped to attend the Air Force Academy, but could not do his studies without the necessary materials.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-gun-violence-is-so-personal-for-expelled-tennessee-rep-justin-pearson
= new reply since forum marked as read
may be Casco, near Sebago Lake). Bowdoin is an excellent school. 
It's entire existence as far as I know. We used to go to Raymond Pond for summer outings. I think the house where Hawthorne lived was where he stayed while in school. I think it was James Fennimore Cooper or Herman Melville attended too. A couple miles from there is a house where Harriet Beecher Stowe lived at one point too. It was across the street from my first grade school, Nathaniel Hawthorne School.
We lived in and around Brunswick during a lot of my childhood. A lot of memories come up when I think about the place.
I don't hear about Bowdoin alum very often... and now I know about two!
Kudos to him for all he does despite all he's been through. 
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