By Robert Bridges
Two Suwannee County cousins were killed in the head-on collision of a motorcycle and an all-terrain vehicle Saturday.
Michael Shane Gaskins, 19, and his cousin, Brandon Lee Gaskins, 15, died in a crash on Adams Road about a mile northeast of Wellborn. Michael had been riding a dirt bike and Brandon an ATV when the machines struck head-on, killing both riders instantly. Neither vehicle had lights and neither rider was wearing a helmet, according to FHP.
The crash occurred shortly after 7 p.m. Michael was headed east and Brandon west when their vehicles collided. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
Brandon was an eighth grader at Suwannee Middle School. Michael worked as a logger. His fiancée gave birth to a baby girl three weeks ago.
Michael was “very loving, giving, sensitive and kind-spirited,” said his mother, Carol Gaskins. He also loved to be around people. “Michael never did anything alone,” his mother said. “Work, play — he always had one of his buddies with him.”
Michael was “the neighborhood repairman,” she said, good with tools and willing to help wherever he was needed.
His fiancée, Jami Hart, and daughter, Mersadie Lynn, were the light of his life.
“From the time he was born he had stolen my heart forever,” said Donna Gaskins of her son Brandon. “Brandon was always sunshine from morning til dark.”
“Nothing ever worried him,” she added. “He’d always say, ‘Mom, you know I’m OK. You worry too much’.”
Michael and Brandon grew up “within a quarter mile of each other,” said Angie Sistrunk, an aunt. Both loved the outdoors: hunting, fishing, mud-bogging — “just being country boys,” said Sistrunk’s husband, Raleigh. “They stayed in the woods all the time.”
“They were fun-loving boys who loved to make people laugh,” said Angie. “Good-natured and outgoing.”
“Michael loved pretty much anything with a motor,” said Raleigh.
Brandon was a standout on the Bullpups football team at SMS. He was close to breaking a school record with a 300 lb. bench press, said Raleigh. His goal was to play football at FSU.
Grief counselors and school psychologists were brought in Monday to help students at SMS cope, said principal Norri Steele. But it wasn’t just Brandon’s classmates who grieved his passing. Teachers who knew him well were “very moved and upset,” said Steele.
Seventh grade English teacher Michelle Thompson, who taught Brandon last year, remembered him fondly in an e-mail. “You just couldn’t help it,” she wrote. “You just had to love him.”
Brandon will be buried in his football uniform, said Angie Sistrunk. She said his teammates are arranging to attend the funeral dressed in their Bullpup jerseys.
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