CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – A 12-year-old boy drowned in the Red River in Clarksville on Sunday, and a family friend has started a GoFundMe to assist with funeral costs.

Dontavious Talley, a 6th grader at Kenwood Middle School, was playing with other children near the Red River when the tragedy happened, according to his mother, Veronica Jones. The river backs up to the Sugartree subdivision off Needmore Road, where the family lives.

Jones told Clarksville Now her son was taken by LifeFlight helicopter to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, but he didn’t make it.

Clarksville Police spokesperson Scott Beaubien told Clarksville Now that the death is under investigation.

‘Tater Chip’

Jones said her son went by “Tay,” and the nickname came from his affinity for potato chips.

“It started off as ‘Tater Chip’ because he used to love to eat all the chips and hide them in his room. We’d be like ‘Where are the chips?’ And I’d be like ‘Tater Chip has got them,’ and they we called him Tater Chip, and then we started calling him Tay Tay. When he got older, people started calling him Tay,” Jones told Clarksville Now.

She said she was shocked by the outpouring of love for her son from his classmates at Kenwood Middle.

“He’s a really funny guy, like I did not know this many people knew of him; like the whole school, they signed his desk. Just so many kids have been walking past and leaving letters,” Jones said. “It’s just amazing how many people really loved him. It helps just knowing that many people loved him that knew of him.”

Clarksville Now has reached out to the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System for comment.

Fundraiser

Michaela Hoosier, a family friend and Tay’s sister’s cheerleading coach, started a GoFundMe for the family. Jones said she doesn’t have insurance, making covering the costs for Tay’s funeral difficult.

“I just started reaching out because that’s just a very horrible, significant event to have to go through. I’m pulling my neighborhood together as a community and we’re rallying, like we’re starting a food train for them starting today,” Hoosier told Clarksville Now.

Hoosier said her children, who were friends with Tay, said his favorite colors were red and blue and that a lot of other kids liked him well.