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| Trevor Davis. Photo courtesy of his Facebook page. |
Trevor Davis broke my heart for the first time in August 2008 when he finished his summer internship at The Frederick News-Post.
He broke it for the final time when he died one year ago today after valiantly fighting an aggressive form of lung cancer. He was 28.
Trevor is the reason I stopped talking to summer interns. I was so crushed when he left that I vowed not to get attached to any in the future.
And boy did I try.
I met Trevor in June 2008 when, as a freshly minted University of Oregon graduate, he landed an internship through the fiercely competitive Dow Jones internship program. He was assigned to the News-Post, the daily chronicle in a town I’m sure he had never heard of before accepting the position.
He packed his trusty Honda Civic with his belongings and drove from one coast to another to work a summer job that would pay barely enough to rent a room, put gas in his car and eat once in a while.
And he couldn’t have been happier—he was working at a respected newspaper where he would have the chance to gather some professional bylines.
Trevor, by the luck of an empty spot, sat at the desk next to mine in a pod of six work stations. He hit the ground running and filed a story on his first day about a new business that had opened in town.
Over the course of his 10-week internship, we became friends. I took him to lunch on occasion, and discovered a little bit about his personal life.
For example, he was head-over-heels in love with a girl named Mandy. The two met in an old-fashioned way—as pen pals when they were kids. He lived in Oregon and she lived in Missouri. Over the years, the friendship grew into a romantic relationship and he beamed from ear to ear whenever he talked about her.
I knew, over the course of the summer, that saying goodbye to Trevor at the end of his program was going to be painful. I’m not so good with goodbyes. It’s difficult enough to say farewell to a colleague who unexpectedly gives notice to move on to the next opportunity. It’s all the more challenging knowing a colleague’s days are numbered at the very beginning of his tenure.
We held out hope he might be offered a full-time position at the end of his internship. But 2008 was a rough year— in fact, the beginning of a long, tough stretch — for print journalism. The newspaper industry was finally figuring out that, in addition to those for aging celebrities and elected leaders, a newspaper needed to have a first draft of its own obituary on file, just in case.
That summer’s interns were a talented bunch. In addition to Trevor, the paper benefitted from the talents of a wonderful photographer from Ohio and the annual Hood College intern.
There were no job offers at the end of the 10 weeks for any of them, and some of the paper's reporters and photographers celebrated the departing youngsters at a Frederick brew pub shortly before they all headed in different directions.
Trevor packed up his car and headed home to Oregon. He soon landed a job at the Tulsa World in Oklahoma and again packed the car and headed off to the next adventure.
But his beloved field of journalism put the screws to him in short order. Just a couple of months into that job, and shortly after he signed a year’s rental lease, he was laid off at the World.
He ultimately landed a job in the communications office at Kansas State University and again set off to a new state. He found his professional home at K State, despite going to the “dark side,” the term news people use for jobs in communications, marketing and public and media relations.
The talented writer flourished at the university and began to build his personal life with Mandy. She moved to Kansas to be with him and enrolled at the school, where she finished her undergraduate degree.
While still at the News-Post, Trevor told me about Mandy’s struggle with a disease called Friedreich’s ataxia, a progressive disorder that causes spinal cord and peripheral nerve degeneration, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website. He would never have used these words, because he didn’t have an egotistical bone in his body, but I think he considered himself Mandy’s knight in shining armor. He loved her so much and expected to be by her side for many, many years, being there for her as her illness progressed.
They were a beautiful couple, and adopted an adorable dog “child,” Chloe. They traveled, hung out with friends, vegged at their home and chronicled their all-too-short married journey through social media posts. The photogenic couple positively glowed with happiness in every picture taken of them, and the love for them shown by friends and family members was palpable.
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| Trevor and Mandy Davis were married Aug. 10, 2013. Photo credit: Trevor's Facebook page. |
Mandy and Trevor were married on Aug. 10, 2013, and no doubt thought they had decades ahead of them.
But life threw them another curve ball when he was diagnosed with cancer just a month or so later and died a year after that, on Sept. 23, 2014.
I wasn’t in Trevor’s inner circle, so I didn’t immediately know the severity of his condition. He put on a big smile and a brave face as he underwent heavy-duty treatment that required longterm hospitalizations.
As we had more in-depth conversations via email chat, he shared that the disease was indeed kicking his butt. He had to resign from his beloved job at K State and was on longterm disability as he fought the illness that took his life way too soon.
On Sept. 5, 2014, Trevor posted on Facebook that he and Mandy had moved to Oregon. I hadn’t chatted with him for a couple of months, and my immediate thought was that he had gone home to die. And as much as I knew that in my brain, it still took my breath away when the announcement of his death was posted less than three weeks later.
I lied earlier in this post when I said Trevor broke my heart for the final time on Sept. 23, 2014.
It breaks every time I think of him, and it breaks for his beautiful wife, who was robbed of a lifetime with the man of her dreams. I realize that we aren’t guaranteed anything on this earth, but to be married and widowed in little more than a year’s time — at the age of 28 — strikes me as unusually cruel.
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| Mandy and Trevor Davis exchanging vows and rings at their August 2013 wedding. Photo credit: Trevor's Facebook page |
During the summer of 2009, I did my best to steer clear of the newspaper’s summer interns, and was pretty successful until Chris Eckard was moved from the hinterlands of the videography department to an empty desk next to mine. Since it’s impossible to not speak to someone sitting in an adjacent desk, I again found myself attached to another wonderful young journalist, and was just as devastated when he left.
I managed to avoid the interns of my final two summers at the FNP, and I apologize to them for protecting my heart in such a selfish manner.
If I was still at the paper, I’d make it a point to welcome and mentor new interns in honor of Trevor.
He would have gotten a kick out of that gesture — perhaps a little embarrassed, but appreciative nonetheless.
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| Trevor Davis photo courtesy of Mandy Davis |
