Staff photo / Bob Coupland Kennedi Brazell, 18, a senior at Warren G. Harding High School, wears special red-and-black cords to honor the memory of Jeremiah Barnes, who died in June 2019 from injuries from an ATV crash. Barnes was 17 and would have been a senior this year.

WARREN — Jeremiah Barnes wore a grin so contagious others couldn’t help but smile right along with him, said many of his classmates at Warren G. Harding High School.

“He could change the mood of every room just by walking in,” Harding senior Karlie Heilman, 18, said. “He was a kind, generous and positive person, willing to help everyone and anyone at any given time.”

Barnes, who died June 21, 2019, at the age of 17 from injuries he suffered in an ATV crash, would have been a senior this year. During last week’s videotaped individual commencement ceremonies, members of the Harding Class of 2020 wore red-and-black cords around their necks to honor and remember Barnes.

The cords, made in Barnes’ favorite colors, provided a way for the graduates to include him as they took their walks across the stage, said Kennedi Brazell,18.

“It was as if he was walking with us,” she said. “He earned it. He deserved to be here. This was our small way of having him here with us, to take his walk, too.”

The National Honor Society sold the cords for the students to wear at graduation with profits going to the Jeremiah Barnes Humanitarian Award. The scholarship, sponsored by local nonprofit Love Charity Alms Inc., is to be awarded to a Warren-area high school student who demonstrates the humanitarian spirit, acts of kindness and work ethic demonstrated by Barnes, said high school Principal Dante Capers.

Selling the cords was part of the honor society’s 2020 Chick-fil-A Community Impact project. The group raised $2,400 for the scholarship with the project.

Cameron Knupp, a Harding senior and honor society vice president, said when presented with ideas about this year’s impact project, the school’s NHS members immediately thought of Barnes and doing something to honor his memory. He and Heilman worked with other NHS members to make it happen.

Knupp had known Barnes since they attended Warren’s Lincoln PK-8 School together.

“His energy was infectious,” Knupp said. “His smile was incredible. We wanted to make sure he was part of the ceremony, even if not physically. He is still a member of our class, and we wanted to represent that, to represent him.”

The district recorded Harding’s some 275 graduates walking across the stage for a virtual ceremony that will be shown Thursday at the Elm Road drive-in. The ceremony also may be watched on WSCN or the student YouTube site.