After 14-year-old Steven Crowder was killed last June when a car struck the bicycle he was riding on Heights Road, one of his teachers at Scripps Middle School turned to music to work through his grief.
The result was “The Comet,” a song former Scripps teacher Carl Zoolkoski wrote in memory of Crowder. Zoolkoski taught seventh grade science at Scripps and will teach the same at Oakview Middle School this year.
“Steven was in my class, and he was on the cross country team I coached and the track team as well,” said Zoolkoski. “I knew him very well. He was a great student and a great athlete, a real special kid.
“The impact on his class (because of his death) was large, and on the community as well.”
Zoolkoski, an Auburn Hills resident, said he decided to write a song for Steven to help him work through his grief, and about a week after he wrote “The Comet,” he performed it at a park last summer.
“I wasn’t much of a songwriter before,” he said. “But there was a positive response. People asked for recordings, and I was happy to do it for friends and family. But to do one song (for a recording) didn’t make that much sense.”
Zoolkoski also decided to approach Crowder’s parents, Dave and Laura Crowder, about putting together a CD to benefit the Steven Crowder Memorial Fund. The fund was set up to help provide scholarships to middle school music students who represent the spirit with which Crowder, who was a talented percussionist and had been accepted into the Lake Orion High School Marching Band, lived his life.
Zoolkoski said Phyllis Bengry came on as coordinator for the project. Bengry is the music director at Sacred Heart of the Hills Catholic Church in Auburn Hills, where Zoolkoski is a member.
“Chris Whitley was also enlisted as a program manager (for the CD). I knew that in order to make the album in a professional way, which was what I wanted to do, I’d need help,” Zoolkoski said.
Fundraising was done to raise the money to produce the CD, which will be available at two area concerts this weekend.
“We got a great response from individuals in the community and from area businesses (for fundraising for the CD,” Zoolkoski said. “We got enough to do what we needed, and we are able to partner with the Orion Art Center to be a non-profit.”
Zoolkoski and Bengry will perform in a CD Release rescheduled concert to benefit the Steven Crowder Memorial Fund on Aug. 22 at Bay Pointe Community Church on Baldwin Road in Lake Orion at 7:30 p.m.
“CDs will be available to sell and the cost is $15 each,” Zoolkoski said. “Right now the (Steven Crowder Memorial) scholarship is for middle school kids, but I’m talking with Steven’s parents and we’d like to expand to where there’d be an annual scholarship for a graduating senior.”
Zoolkoski said Crowder “put his all” in everything he did, and had worked with the Scripps band director Eric Crimmins, who also helped with the fund, for three years as a percussionist.
“The whole goal of doing this is for people to remember Steven and what a great kid he was,” added Zoolkoski.
The CD, also titled “The Comet,” includes 10 songs. Anyone unable to attend the concerts but who would still like to purchase one can contact Whitley at (248) 922-1205.