His Life
On December 1, 2009, Nelson E. Hopkins Junior was walking home from a library when he was robbed and shot to death near the corner of 54th Street and Lydia in Kansas City, Missouri.
He was found near Rockhurst University by campus security, but passed away before medics or emergency responders arrived. He was only seventeen years old.
Violence isn’t uncommon in that neighborhood, but Nelson was on his way out. He applied himself in school, held a part-time job, played in a band, wrote poetry, and exhibited a sense of core values and confidence far beyond his years. He died with a college application in his pocket, and just twenty-five feet from a college campus.
Nelson Junior led a life of respect, determination, intelligence, caring, and perseverance, but this was not his first brush with violence.
At eight years old, Nelson was the victim of a home invasion and robbery while he was living at his great-grandmother’s house, during which he was brutally assaulted and held at gunpoint. The robber threatened to “blow his brains out” if his great-grandmother didn’t hand over all her money, and to save her great-grandson’s life, she gave him every dollar.
Nelson Junior’s life was affected by crime in another, equally impactful way. While he was growing up , his father Nelson E. Hopkins Senior, served a fifteen year prison sentence for robbery. His mother worked long hours to provide for him, and his grandmother, too old to really care for Nelson, did as much as she could.
As a young black man in a high-crime neighborhood, and with a father in prison, Nelson had the odds stacked against him. But he didn’t turn to the streets for money, power, or respect. Rather, he set his own goals and dreams and relied on his own determination to pursue them. And he found in his Christian faith a strength to overcome obstacles and succeed.
Nelson was an honor roll student at Alta Vista Charter High School and would have been the class salutatorian. Faculty and staff at the school characterized him as wise and thoughtful beyond his years, highly-intelligent, respectful, and very creative. He was a talented guitar player who picked up instruments easily which enabled him to perform in talent shows, concerts, and other public venues. His dream was to combine studies in both business and music in his college endeavors.
At Anthony’s Italian Restaurant, Nelson was praised as one of the best employees to ever work there. Customers regularly offered compliments about the service and how his efforts added to the pleasure of dining at Anthony’s. A photograph of Nelson stills hangs in the business.
Family and friends were attracted to Nelson’s bright, outgoing personality and his serious thoughts caused his cousins to refer to him as “the old man”. And in debate, Nelson would dominate the discussion with arguments that defended cultural diversity, political differences, and independent thinking. But he did so with respect for the points of view of others and often even with humor. He always appreciated the right to be different.
And, recognizing his persuasive arguments, dedication, and perseverance, Nelson’s classmates at Alta Vista called him “invincible”. And he made them feel invincible as well.
Nelson’s will to succeed in spite of overwhelming odds made him invincible. He overcame neighborhood gang violence, drive-by shootings, drug dealers, his parents’ alcohol abuse, dysfunction, and more. Despite being taken much too soon, his accomplishments left a mark on this earth and his spirit today burns brightly in the memories of family, friends, and even the greater community at large. And because of his spirit of generosity and creativity, his character provides an example for others as they strive to pursue their dreams, just as he did.
He is still invincible.
Nelson once sang the Irene Cara lyrics: “I’m gonna live forever! And light up the sky like a flame! I’m gonna make it to heaven! People will remember my name!”
Nelson Junior’s potential and promise were extinguished before having the chance to fully blossom and we are all the poorer for that loss. But his legacy is a reminder for each of us to draw out the potential and promise inside each of our children so that families, neighborhoods, and communities will thrive and meet their dreams.
He had every gift but the gift of time.
His Legacy
This Scholarship Fund is an undertaking that was proposed by the men of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and the women of Alpha Sigma Alpha sorority at Rockhurst University as a way to both remember Nelson Hopkins Junior and to pay forward his example of working toward educational achievement and responsible citizenship. Even though the students who originally proposed the effort had never actually met Nelson Junior, they became dedicated to the cause, and the student sponsor steering committee has been passed on each year from one group of fraternity and sorority members to the next.
The Hopkins 5K Skip Run is now in its fourteenth year. Since its start in 2010, the Rockhurst student sponsors have organized and supervised the Hopkins 5K Run to raise funds for college scholarships for students at Alta Vista Charter and the event has grown in popularity and size each year, was held annually on Family and Alumni Weekend at Rockhurst and attracting well over three hundred runners and other participants. In early years, funds had been raised exclusively from this event, but some years ago the sponsor committee undertook a successful effort, aided by the Law School of the University of Missouri Kansas City, to be designated a nonprofit organization by the IRS, thus enabling the successful solicitation of larger donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations, and both strengthening the existing fund and creating greater opportunities to provide more and larger scholarships. That effort has enabled the fund to both increase the annual value of the scholarships as well as the awarding of multiple scholarships in a given year. Additionally, the program has funded field trips to regional colleges and universities for college-bound Alta Vista seniors to better acquaint and equip them to understand and pursue a college experience.
The Scholarship Fund is managed by a Board and a Selection Committee consisting of private individuals and members of the Hopkins family, none of who are in any way compensated. Funds are deposited at a local bank and are divided between checking and an interest-bearing investment account, the latter of which holds the funds for most of the year. The sole purpose of the student-sponsored run and any other fund raising efforts by the committee or other individuals involved, as well as other contributions during the year, is to provide college preparations activities and scholarships for graduating Alta Vista students who have been accepted to institutions of higher learning and to support them during four years of study. The scholarship currently consists of a one-thousand dollar award renewable for four years, and is paid directly to the institution in the recipient’s behalf. As the fund and its varied abilities to raise additional money continues to grow, the hope is that both the number and size of the awards may grow.
The Scholarship Fund represents much more than members of diverse communities responding to a family’s tragedy and the loss to the greater society of exactly the kind of young person any of us would embrace, as laudable as those objectives may be. Through its involvement of individuals, groups, institutions, and organizations, and particularly that of young people of different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, it acts as a catalyst and bridge, both among those life experiences and outlooks, and between the tragedy of the past and the hope and dreams of accomplishments of the future.