Kennedy Teachers Remember Doodley DeRose

Doodley DeRose knew the college he was going to at first sight.

“I remember his face,” said Timothy McNeil, his advisor and mentor in high school “He turned to me and said, ‘This is where I’m coming to school’”

“You haven’t even taken the tour yet,” McNeil said, as they stepped off the bus in Petersburg, Virginia.

But sure enough, Doodley DeRose attended Virginia State University the next year.

Now teachers and students at Kennedy High School, DeRose’s alma mater, are dealing with the loss of the 19-year-old, killed in front of his house this past December.

“His death was very difficult for me,” McNeil said. McNeil was the teacher leader of AMATE, African American Males Aiming Towards Excellence, a student group that Doodley was active in throughout high school, “Unfortunately, I’ve lost other kids.”

DeRose, a good student with a gift of leadership and an excellent speaking voice, was also the sports editor of his yearbook. 

“He really contributed to the dynamic of the class,” Yearbook adviser Tim Rodman said.

Voted “Best Laugh”,  DeRose often cracked a joke when the deadlines got tough, Rodman said, but continued to be a leader on the project.

DeRose had come back to visited Kennedy several times last winter. Katrele Carroll, head of college and careers at Kennedy, said he had stopped by on each of the three days before he died, all on his winter break - to play basketball in the gym, to meet with current AMATE students, and to speak to juniors and seniors about his experience at college.

It was the second year DeRose had returned to help students who were applying to college. 

“It’s a domino affect, you want to give and share your experience,” Carroll said about DeRose’s community service, adding he had used the school’s resources in order to apply for financial aid. It only made sense to come back and share what he had learned.

DeRose’s ambitions were already looking towards the future. Law school was on his mind, a natural outlet for a political science student with, as McNeil calls it, “the gift of talk.”

“He was a very articulate young man, when he spoke he spoke with conviction,” McNeil said. “When he was here, he was already talking to me about the law school he had visited. He felt pretty confident that he could get in after he took the LSAT.”

The trial for the two suspects in DeRose’s murder, and , is scheduled for August of this year.