KEVIN A. CAREY-INFANTE

ASHLYNN CONNOR

December 2, 2000 – November 11, 2011

It’s happened yet again! Another child is being buried today whose death is a result of bullycide! This time the victim was only 10-years old. Ashlynn Connor was a 5th-grade honors student at Georgetown-Ridge Farm Elementary School in Georgetown, Illinois (located about 50 mile from Champaign, Illinois.)

Ashlynn was a happy girl with a contagious smile. School Superintendent Kevin Tate, who lived a couple of house away from the Connor family said that, she [Ashlynn] seemed like a happy-go-lucky, good-natured girl. She played trumpet in the school band, and she enjoyed cleaning. She was a person who wanted to help others whenever she could. Her mother, Stacy Connor (a single mom of 2 young girls), tells the story of when Ashlynn was in 3rd grade. She brings this bag down the hallway, brought it to me and said they were clothes and they were to go to Haiti. She didn’t want them anymore because they needed them more than she did. Even at 10-years old she knew that she wanted to be a veterinarian. She loved animals and she didn’t want to see them sick or hurting. Lory Hackney, Ashlynn’s grandmother who also lives with them, said that Ashlynn was excited about Thanksgiving and turning 11.

The bullying began when Ashlynn was 7-years old. Grandmother Hackney reported, When she [Ashlynn] started cheering for youth football, we’d gotten her hair cut in a bob. The kids started making fun of her then. They started calling her a boy…To this day she hated to have her hair cut. Several girls at Ridge Farm Elementary had been bullying Ashlynn relentlessly over a 3 year period. They called her things like fat, ugly and they called her a slut (a term that Ashlynn didn’t know the meaning of.) Her mother was fully aware of the bullying, but she admits that she didn’t know what to do about it. When speaking to a local television station last weekend Mrs. Connor said, I really thought she had it all under control because I thought she was listening to me…I thought, my kids are strong kids, that my words to them for guidance and advise was going to have more weight than what these kids could be saying.

Thursday night, after being harassed by 3 girls all day long, Ashlynn asked her mother if she could be home schooled. Mom denied her request. Apparently by Friday night Ashlynn thought that there was no way out for her. Her mother recalls hearing her on the phone complaining to a friend about not being allowed to be home schooled. About 30 minutes later Ashlynn’s 14-year old sister, Michaila Baldwin, found her baby sister hanging in her bedroom closet by one of her scarves. Grandmother Hackney, a retired registered nurse, unsuccessfully performed CPR until EMS arrived. Ashlynn Connor was 21 days away from her 11th birthday.

Rest in Peace, Ashlynn

Words can hurt or heal.
What did yours do today?

-Unknown