{"id":540,"date":"2017-07-30T11:04:30","date_gmt":"2017-07-30T11:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madd.org\/tennessee\/?p=540"},"modified":"2022-05-31T08:50:28","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T08:50:28","slug":"nick-willhoit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madd.org\/tennessee\/nick-willhoit\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We’re Here: Nick Willhoit"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Nick Willhoit was that kid everybody loved.  He grew up in a small town community in Carroll County, Tennessee – a place where everybody knew everyone.  He had gone to school with most of the kids he graduated with all his life and had played baseball with a lot of them since he was 5 years old.  He was a quiet laid back type and had a heart of gold.  He was the type to take up for those being bullied or picked-on.  He had three brothers and a stepsister and adored his two nieces.  He spent a lot of his free time hanging out with his brother, Noah, watching sports and playing video games.  Nick loved gaming which is what he spent most of his time doing when he wasn\u2019t at work.   He sat at his computer and occasionally would have a beer or two\u2026while at home.<\/p>\n

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Nick (pictured in blue) with his mom, Mandy, his 3 brothers, and his oldest niece<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He was working at Lowe\u2019s and living at home with his mom, stepdad, and brother, Jake, but was planning to take college classes in the fall of 2016.  When Nick was short on money he would sometimes help his mom at the screen printing shop where she worked.  He had worked with her some the week of July 25, 2016, and she had asked if he wanted to help that weekend. But he was scheduled to work at Lowe\u2019s on Saturday and said he had plans on Sunday.  Mandy says he had been a little secretive about the girl he had been seeing lately, so she didn’t ask any questions.  Nick had been secretive, because, like any 21-year-old would be, he wasn’t comfortable confiding to his mom that, Jackie, the girl he had been dating, was 34-years-old.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, July 31, 2016, he and Jackie joined one of Jackie’s friends and her husband, both in their forties, on their pontoon boat for a day on the water.  They went out on the Tennessee River in Decatur County in the Perryville area.  The friend’s husband, who was driving the boat, had bought beer and had been drinking throughout the day.  They decided at some point to go back to the house they had on the river and change for dinner.<\/p>\n

The driver was in the drivers’ seat with his wife right next to him.  Nick was riding on the front of the boat facing the driver with Jackie lying on the seat with her feet in his lap.  Jackie says she and Nick both had their eyes closed and were enjoying the sunshine and the wind on their faces.  But a relaxing day on the  water turned tragic in an instant.  The driver drove head-on into a barge moored to the bank.  Witnesses say he was going so fast that the front of the boat was out of the water and was traveling at a high rate of speed.  His BAC registered .13 four hours after the crash.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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