“Smith was a friend of my family,” Bailey said. Smith’s mother, Rachel Smith, taught at Bailey’s school when he was in the elementary grades.
Smith was 21 when he died last November of a heart condition, collapsng in his Charlotte dormitory room at Johnson C. Smith University. No one knew he had a heart condition.He was a junior.
Rachel Smith and the family established a scholarship fund with a $1,000 donation to go to a graduating senior from Pinecrest “who reminds us of Jason.”
She and other consultants chose Bailey, who will be 18 in June.
“He was my sister’s best friend,” Bailey said. The two were the same age, Bailey’s sister, Stacey, graduated with Smith in 2000.
“The last time I saw Jason was at my sister’s wedding last August,” said Bailey, who plans to use the money to pay tuition at Sandhills Community College for a degree in turf management.
Smith “had a prescence, a bounce in his walk, a smile in his voice,” said Bailey, who used to see Smith when he’d visit their home in Pinehurst. “He was the kind of guy who you’d have to go say ‘Hi’ to, he was such a nice guy.”
Rachel Smith, who now is at West Pine Middle School, thinks Bailey is a lot like her son.
On Nov. 13, 2002, Smith suddenly crimpled to the floor of his room while his two older brothers were planning to take him to dinner in Charlotte.
The brothers, Dr. Jimmie Smith of Perry, Ga., and the Rev. Jeffrey Smith of Charlotte, were horrified. He was dead before they arrived.
“I was in Charlotte and had come there for a meeting,” said the older brother, Jimmie, 34. Jeffrey Smith joined him. They had planned to eat dinner with Jason Smith. The last time they had all been together had been “a couple of Thanksgivings ago,” Jimmie Smith recalled.
“Jeffrey and I got together about 4:40,” he said. “We spoke to Jason about 6:30. We got a call at 7 and went to Smith’s room. He had collapsed.”
As the oldest of four children, Jimmie Smith had always told his brothers, “If you need me, I’ll come. This time, I couldn’t save him. I feel responsible for all of them.”
Cardiopulmonary and emergency medical emergency personnel with special equipment couldn’t help. Jason Smith had shown no symptoms of a heart condition. His brothers were told that he simply crumpled to the floor, probably without pain or knowing what had happened.
Their father, Dr. Jimmie Smith, is a Richmond County school administrator. The family homeplace is near West End.
Smith was a track star, a well-liked athlete, “the epitome of style and grace,” as his Pinecrest classmates described him in a sympathy note to his family at Christmas. They wrote of “the rhythm [he] had in everything [he] did … “ and of “[his] proud stride and angelic glide.”
All the brothers were physically fit, because they played on athletic teams, said their 25-year-old sister, Twyla Smith. That’s why it was a shock that the likeable, patient, 6-3 man collapsed.
“I’m glad it happened the way it happened,” Twyla Smith said. “He was in a safe place, around people he enjoyed being around. We didn’t have to see him suffer. If it had to happen, this was probably the best way.”
Her younger brother made headlines as an athlete, as did she, a 1995 Pinecrest graduate and a 1999 Johnson C. Smith graduate. She was closest to Jason among the four children because of their ages, their mother said.
Smith had his own way of doing things but was active with his church, loved to help younger children and “liked everybody,” his former minister, the Rev. Joseph Thompson of John Hall Presbyterian Church, and his former coach, Nathaniel Carter, recalled. Smith participated in nearly everything.
He won a blue ribbon at the Moore County Agricultural Fair for growing a prize sweet pepper, and he won another ribbon for eggplant. He liked to go to Sandhills Community College, sit and enjoy the horticultural gardens.
His relatives remember him as being a “doer,” not a bystander. But he didn’t aggressively beat down the doors for opportunities to express his artistic talents. He would “glide in” if you opened the door or noticed that he was standing outside, perhaps practicing something that was in his head, said an uncle, the Rev. James A. Belle.
In a memorial service for Smith at First Presbyterian Church in Nebraska, Belle noted that Smith was the kind of athlete who would wait for the others to “run themselves out” on the track. “You may have tired waiting on Jason, but Jason never tired waiting on you,” he said.
As a youngster at Christmas, Rachel Smith recalled, Jason Smith would slip out of his room to find the presents under the tree before his sister found them.
“They always believed in Santa Claus,” she remembered. “They had to write letters to him.”
A wet blanket in the first grade tried to tell Smith that there was no Santa Claus, Twyla Smith said. “I always kept telling Jason Santa Claus was real as long as possible,” she added.
Thompson, Kiwanis Club liaison for the school Key Club, remembered that Smith had a professional way of opening a meeting when he was Key Club president.
“He would wait until everybody in the room was quiet until he spoke,” Thompson said.
Smith also had a flair for the arts, including drama, the minister recalled. The youngest Smith brother played in “Showboat” and in the school jazz band at Pinecrest.
Carter, his former coach, remembered the slender youth from basketball practice, although track seemed to be the main strength for the tall athletes in the Smith family. (Twyla Smith won national and state championships in the long jump and hurdle.)
“He got the job done,” Carter said. “He had his own schedule, his own rhythm.” He also won two dance titles and choreographed dances as well..
“Jason liked everybody,” Thompson said. “He was active in church life. He took a part in the youth services and in vacation Bible school.”
A few days before Smith died, he took the time to call long-distance and cheer up a seriously ill 12-year-old boy with diabetes.
More than one memorial service was held for Smith in the community. Twyla Smith recognized “a lady who worked for the Chicken King, a restaurant near the campus in Charlotte, where Smith used to order a fried baloney sandwich” as a special treat.
Since the scholarship fund for deserving Pinecrest High School seniors has begun, community leaders such as Dr. David Bruton have become involved.
In Smith’s memory, some donations have come in to the already established John Williams Foundation. Smith’s former teachers at Pinecrest have been generous in donating to the foundation’s memorial in honor of John Williams. Williams, who was athletic director and a former coach of the older Smiths, was killed in an accident several years ago,.
To donate to the new scholarship fund, interested persons can write to Jason Floyd Smith Scholarship Fund, Fidelity Bank, P.O. Box 1150, Carthage, N.C., 28327.
