A Boy Scout's love for animals preserves his memory

JAMAICA, Va.

Clarke Fox loves to talk about his sons.

He likes to tell stories of when they were young, especially his elder son, Jackson.

From the time he was born, he loved animals - talked about them, read about them, collected colorful pictures and plastic images. He vowed he would someday be a veterinarian at a zoo, maybe have his own zoo.

And then he died.

Jackson was 13 when he was killed in a fiery accident while on his way home from a Boy Scout weekend in November 2006. He was with three other Scouts and the assistant Scoutmaster. Only one Scout, the son of the Scout leader, made it out of the packed SUV.

Jackson's stories live on.

There was the time, when he was barely 4, that the family went to the Smithsonian Institution. In an animal display, Jackson knew the names of every one. He'd run from place to place, calling out their names.

When another visitor to the museum kept a close pace behind the family, Clarke Fox said they were almost suspicious of being followed, until the man came up to them at the end.

"How old is he?" the man asked. "I didn't mean to follow you, but I didn't know the names of most of these animals. I wanted to learn."

Now, on two levels at the nature center at Bayport Scout Reservation in the community of Jamaica in Middlesex County, animals from the woodlands of Virginia roam, the same animals Jackson loved so much.

From a salamander to a black bear, Jackson's father started the stuffed collection the year after the accident. He either acquired them in the woods himself or got help from friends and acquaintances. The collection now numbers 51, and there are still a few small animals at the taxidermist who has become a close family friend.

Each animal has a story, like the nine-point buck at the top of the display.

"That deer should have actually belonged to Thomas," Fox said, talking about his younger son. "Thomas had the gun on him as he came out of the woods, but there was a dog too close to the deer, and Thomas wouldn't shoot."

As if it were meant to be, the buck shied away, circled back and stood in front of Clarke Fox. At the "father and son" hunt with his hunt club, Fox said he'd carried Jackson's gun that day. He lifted it, fired, and the buck fell.

The large black bear was a gift from an acquaintance, Fox said. The small albino deer came from the taxidermist.

There are two bobcats in the display, a yellow-eyed coyote, an otter, two minks, a tiny black snake in a tree. There's a large turkey mounted on one wall. Virginia fish line another wall.

In the parking lot at the national Boy Scout camp, Fox tells one story after another about Jackson. Then he tears up.

After almost four years, the loss still hurts, he said, but he believes his family has done its best to honor him.

They've installed bronze animals at the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk to remember Jackson. There's a scholarship at the school he attended in Jackson's memory, another scholarship with the Boy Scouts.

The facility at the Scout camp was just getting off the ground when Jackson died, said Dick Collins, Scout executive of the Colonial Virginia Council. The exhibit, he said, is a perfect addition to the reservation.

The athletic field behind the cafeteria is dedicated to the memory of Carter Stephenson, 14, who died in the same wreck. A golden eagle near the center of the field is dedicated to the third victim, 12-year-old Luke Drewry.

And there was more to Jackson than his love of animals. He also loved soccer; he was a straight-A student; he loved Virginia Tech.

But every Boy Scout who comes through the reservation for years to come will know the animals of Virginia's woodlands thanks to Jackson's adoration of the animals.

"We took him to every zoo and every aquarium we could think of," his father said. "He went to all three Sea Worlds, to Germany the year before he died.

"Now, kids from Florida to New York can come here to see his animals."

Linda McNatt, (757) 222-5561, linda.mcnatt@pilotonline.com