Tanner Wray Foundation looks to honor student death
Kylie Hubbard
Editor-in-Chief A little over six months after the death of student Tanner Wray, Amy Schisler is hoping to honor Tanner’s can-do spirit. Schisler, Tanner’s mother, said the foundation started from the ideas in Tanner’s valedictorian speech from his high school graduation. “His speech was themed ‘How Will You Be Remembered,’ and in that speech he challenged his classmates to do better,” Schisler said. “He said in there ‘I want to leave this world as someone who is remembered for making a positive impact on people’s lives.’ So that’s what we are doing for him.” “We created the foundation to continue his legacy of making a positive impact on other people’s lives,” Schisler added. Aiming to raise money and awareness through t-shirts, giveaways and events, Schisler said the funds will go toward scholarships for high school students in Lawrence and surrounding counties along with a scholarship for an honors aerospace engineering student at UT in honor of Wray’s own major. “The people who are going to get this scholarship are going to have to embody (his) same spirit,” Schisler said. “Not everybody deserves the participation ribbon, that ain’t the kind of world that we live in and it shouldn’t be because
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that’s where mediocrity comes from. If no one strives to be the best, then we’re just creating a world of mediocracy. “Whoever gets that scholarship will have earned that scholarship (and) so it will be meritbased,” Schisler added. Scholarship details are still in the works, but head of the department of mechanical, aerospace and biomedical engineering Matthew Mench said he hopes the UT scholarship will come to fruition. “I was lucky enough to get to know Tanner somewhat in the halls and am really happy to hear something like this in his name may happen,” Mench said in an email Wednesday. On Friday, Feb. 23, Wray was boxing for Chi Phi Fraternity in the junior light heavyweight class during the 38th Annual Ace Miller Memorial Boxing Tournament when he collapsed in his corner after the second round. Sources reported that medical personnel attended to him by providing an oxygen mask and performing CPR. After 10 minutes, an ambulance arrived and transported Wray to the UT Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. After the incident, attendees rode buses back to campus around 10:15 p.m. and about 300 students gathered on Ped Walkway to hold a vigil for Wray by 10:30 p.m. “I thought it was pretty incredible to show how the Greek system works as a community
— that we’re all brothers and sisters, no matter what your chapter is,” Bryan Rocko, sophomore exploratory in business administration, said at the vigil. Wray began training for the boxing tournament in Sept. 2017, according to Schisler. “He wanted to do the boxing tournament, so he started training in September so he would be good,” Schisler said. “He didn’t want to be just good; he wanted to be the best at everything he did.” Before his death, Wray held a 3.9 GPA in “rocket science” as an honors aerospace engineering student. In high school, Wray excelled, graduating with a 99.5 grade point average, a 33 composite and a 35 super score on the ACT. Wray also graduated high school with close to 300 community service hours. “One of his fraternity brothers is the one who spoke at his funeral and said that Tanner had accomplished more at lunchtime than most of them probably accomplished all day long because of how he wanted to live his life,” Schisler said. Outside of raising money for the scholarships, Schisler said she’d like for the foundation to become a household name with enough money to cover the costs of heart screenings that couldn’t otherwise be paid for. “He had an abnormal heart and we had no idea. He had never been screened,” Schisler said. “I think every child that’s going to play
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some kind of sport should be screened because had he known, he would not have boxed that night.” On Oct. 6, the foundation is hosting a 5K and a comedy show to help raise money. A Go Fund Me page will be set up soon and more information can be found on the Tanner Wray Foundation Facebook page. “When he was little, he would say ‘T is for Tanner and T is for Tennessee,’” Schisler said. “He was just an amazing kid and an amazing young man.” Photos Courtesy of Amy Schisler
Tuesday, September 4, 2018