DRY FORK, VA : Victim in deadly ATV crash, 13, was ‘a friend to everybody on Friday, February 17th 2017

The seventh-graders at Tunstall Middle School wrote their feelings about Christopher Andrew Bowden on bulletin board paper and put them on the hallways’ walls.

Bowden, 13, of Cascade, will be remembered as “a great kid,” Deborah Stowe, Tunstall’s principal, said Friday.

Bowden was the victim of a fatal all-terrain vehicle crash Thursday evening.

He was “very well liked at school. A friend to everybody,” Stowe said.

“It was very hard” for the students upon learning of Bowden’s death, she said. “Some of them didn’t know about it until they got to school today.”

At about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Bowden and another juvenile were riding a 2009 Yamaha ATV on a private gravel driveway “when it ran off the right side of the driveway and struck a tree,” according to a Virginia State Police news release.

Bowden was the passenger on the four-wheeler. He was not wearing a helmet and died at the scene, the release stated.

Charges are pending in the incident, which is still under investigation. State police did not confirm the age of the minor or if he was injured.

Virginia law states that an ATV should not be operated by any person under the age of 16.

On Friday, some Tunstall Middle School students learned of Bowden’s death and were devastated, Stowe said.

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Victim in deadly ATV crash, 13, was ‘a friend to everybody