JOYCE — People who knew 13-year-old Joe Rogers — an avid hunter, fisherman and basketball player — were trying to make sense Wednesday of why he brought a gun to school and shot himself.
He was a lively, positive boy who rode motocross dirt bikes, always smiled and was just learning to play guitar, they said.
“He did it all,” his grandmother, Joan Rogers, said Wednesday evening. “He was just a real, real good kid.
“We don’t have a clue why this happened.”
On Wednesday morning, the Crescent School seventh-grader pulled a .22-caliber rifle from his guitar case and shot himself in the chest just before the end of his second-period language arts class, according to Crescent School District Superintendent Rich Wilson and Clallam County Undersheriff Fred DeFrang.
Neither Wilson nor DeFrang identified the boy, but students, friends and community members said they knew it was Joe.
“He was such a happy-go-lucky kid,” said Susan Smith, who works at Joyce General Store where Joe’s mother, Lyda, is the acting postmaster.
“He was last on my list,” Smith said. “I never would’ve expected something like this.”