Latest news with #Zachary
USA Today
13 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Notre Dame softball commit Ava Zachary named Miss Softball Indiana
Future Fighting Irish infielder hit over .500 en route to award A Notre Dame softball signee has been named Indiana's Miss Softball. Ava Zachary hit .543 with 60 RBI in 32 games for Penn High School in Mishawaka, Ind. She's the first player from Penn to win the state's highest award for a softball player. Mishawaka, of course, is in the South Bend area, so Zachary will be staying close to home when she heads to Notre Dame's campus. The left-handed hitting Zachary plays third base and she helped lead Penn to a 2023 state championship. She's been a four-time First-Team All-Northern Indiana Conference selection. 'It means everything,' Zachary told her school paper, The Pennant. 'It's such a surreal moment. I'm super grateful for this opportunity and the opportunity that Penn softball has given me the past four years. It was an amazing moment to stand up there with all the other amazing talent in Indiana and to hear my name be read. This is so much more than an individual award. It's an award for all the girls at Penn who have ever played Softball, and all the girls who played next to me the last four years and worked so hard and gave such a great effort every day.' 'This award just means I have to get back to work, Zachary said. "I have to work 10 times harder now and work to get better day-in and day-out.' Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on X (Formerly Twitter), and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions. Follow Tim on X: @tehealey
Buzz Feed
a day ago
- Health
- Buzz Feed
Water Safety Lessons From A Grieving Parent
When my son Zachary drowned in our backyard pool, I never dreamed that 15 years later, in the midst of a global pandemic and a severe lifeguard shortage, that his younger brother Henry would step up to pursue a job as a lifeguard. Henry now stands among the ranks of water-safety first responders, and his new position serves as a meaningful living remembrance on what would have been Zachary's 21st birthday. I'm still overwhelmed with emotion when I think back to that horrible day in 2007, the day that changed our lives forever. Each traumatic detail is etched into my memory ― the chlorine scent, the reflection of the late afternoon sun on the pool, the sweaty humidity, the piercing screams. The chaos of my son's drowning death comes rushing back in a wave of indescribably intense pain. It was a searing July afternoon, just two months after our fourth child, Sydney, was born. We had just moved into our dream home, and the family swam and played in our brand-new backyard pool. Zachary, then 6, showed off his swimming skills (thanks to an excellent program at his summer camp). Little did we know an unexpected tragedy beyond our wildest imagination was about to unfold. We believed we'd done everything to follow measures to keep our family safe. The pool was in full compliance with town safety codes that mandated fencing and door alarms for entrances to the pool area. Our children had taken swimming lessons; they were strong and comfortable in the water and always closely supervised. We couldn't know that the pool's drain cover was defective and had become loose, removing the barrier between swimmers and the powerful vacuum pump that can exert hundreds of pounds of sucking water pressure. In an instant, the strong suction from the drain had trapped Zachary's arm, holding him underwater. We were unable to free him until we were able to shut down the power to the pool. In the months that followed his death, we reeled from our loss. We tried to make sense of it and wondered how we could recover as a family and give meaning to a young life cut short so unfairly. The more we learned about water safety statistics ― that drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children between the ages of 1 and 4 and is the second-leading cause of death for children younger than 14 ― the more we knew we wanted to prevent other families from ever having to experience the loss of a child from drowning. With Zachary as our inspiration, we formed The ZAC Foundation a few years later. Over the last decade, the foundation has provided free swim camps for more than 20,000 kids around the country (especially in urban areas), has awarded grants for water safety education and research, and fostered partnerships to develop community-based drowning prevention plans in four large cities. Importantly, The ZAC Foundation has contributed toward the development of a national Water Safety Action Plan, designed to educate everyone (from homeowners to aquatic center personnel) about best practices to promote water safety and prevent drowning. Our entire family has been engaged from Day 1 on this journey to build the foundation. So it was no surprise that Henry said, at my suggestion, that he was 'all in' to become a lifeguard. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the American Lifeguard Association reported a whopping 40% to 50% staffing shortage at swimming areas across the country. These are well-paying jobs requiring skill and grit. I was confident that Henry ― a very strong, skilled swimmer and someone hyper-aware of the importance of water safety ― would make a highly competent lifeguard. On the first day of his training, Henry had to dive to the bottom of the deep end, retrieve a brick and swim with it to the shallow end. Even though he was strong and played sports, he found it hard to do, and at least two of his fellow students couldn't complete the task. When Henry came home and told us about the exercise, we couldn't help but wonder if we had made the right decision. Would he be able to handle the physical rigor and emotional stress of this job? And could we? Getting safety-certified wasn't easy. Henry nearly missed his sister's eighth-grade graduation due to lifeguard training. But he persevered, earned his certification and was hired at a pool in our community. From the get-go, he was hyper-vigilant. On his first day at the pool, he surprised his peers and supervisor by proactively asking them to locate the safety equipment. For Henry, water safety was not an abstraction. It was urgently real. He fully understood the importance of safety training and safe pool management. As statistics bear out, drowning incidents happen all the time ― even when lots of safety precautions have been taken. It is terribly easy (even typical) for a parent or caregiver to become distracted while watching toddlers play in the kiddie pool and, even worse, while also trying to keep an eye on their older kids in the main pool. It happens! For lifeguards, unanticipated dangers lurk everywhere. Many pools are overcrowded, and it can be difficult to monitor children who become hidden. In larger pools, sightlines are often obscured by columns and curves. Glare on the water can mask danger. And unanticipated distractions for the lifeguard can be especially risky. Despite warnings from well-intentioned friends in the drowning prevention movement, the pitfalls and risks (emotional and otherwise) never overwhelmed Henry. I feel deeply touched by his seriousness and courage, given the tragedy we had lived through with Zachary. By the end of the summer, the closest Henry came to rescuing someone was when he offered to help an older gentleman navigate the pool stairs on his way out. The man gruffly rebuffed the offer, but Henry stood nearby to make sure that the man was able to safely hold his footing. No family should ever have to endure the loss of a child. When a parent turns to me, with fear and sympathy in their eyes, they will often ask how they can learn from Zachary's loss and prevent this from happening to them. We share easy-to-remember lifesaving tools, like the ABCDs of drowning prevention. There should always be an A dult present with eye-to-eye contact on the child swimming. B arriers, like fences and gates, are a must for restricting children's access to the water. Families should enroll in C lasses ― swim lessons for kids and CPR training for adults. D rains should be regularly inspected for broken and/or loose covers. And proper lifesaving D evices, i.e. U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets, should be worn at all times in open water. After our family's devastating loss, I never would have imagined that my other children would take on what has become my life's work. Maybe Henry didn't realize what the impact would be for me when he agreed to try lifeguarding, but his decision made me deeply proud. His willingness to be vulnerable and address our family's trauma head-on is a source of strength and hope. During the year of Zachary's 21st birthday, I look back and feel grateful for life's lessons learned and the opportunity to hopefully prevent a tragic loss for others. Karen Cohn co-founded The ZAC Foundation in 2008 with her husband, Brian Cohn, after their 6-year-old son, Zachary Archer Cohn, drowned when his arm became entrapped in a pool drain. Zachary's memory is the inspiration for the foundation's mission and activities. The ZAC Foundation has funded free water safety and swim camps for more than 20,000 children in at-risk communities nationwide and is spearheading the development of drowning prevention plans in four U.S. communities in the hopes of reducing the national drowning rate. Through her role at The ZAC Foundation, Karen has testified before congressional subcommittees as well as before state and federal agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has written about water safety issues for major media outlets and is also a Northeast Trustee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Daily Mail
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Stacey Solomon, 34, and eldest son Zachary, 17, enjoy a wholesome trip to Paris after clashing on the family's reality show
Stacey Solomon shared wholesome photos on Saturday from a 'special' getaway to Paris she shared with her eldest son Zachary. The singer, 35, has enjoyed a busy week of jet-setting after flying away on a plush business trips to Lake Como, Italy, earlier this week. Stacey however took time out of her hectic schedule to show Zachary the best Paris has to offer, telling her followers the trip made her 'so happy' in a heart-warming caption. Zach, 17, is the oldest of the TV star's five children, who also include Rex, five, Rose, three, and Belle, two, with husband Joe Swash, 44, and Leighton, 12, who she shares with a previous partner. Stacey's compilation of photos showed her and Zach enjoying some one-on-one time as they trekked around Paris seeing all of the city's famous sights. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Both sporting shorts on a sunny day, the pair posed in front of the Eiffel Tower in one snap as Stacey cracked a beaming smile for the camera. The compilation also revealed that Stacey and Zach took trips to both the Louvre and the picturesque Notre-Dame on a week where temperatures in the French capital soared to 30 degrees. Stacey looked every bit the proud mum in the photos before gushing in her caption about the pair's special trip away together. The mother-of-five wrote: '2 days with my Zach. 'Why are these the best pics ever, they make me so happy! Me & you Zachy! 'We went Pokemon hunting yesterday & today, it's something we've done for years & have never been to a proper city Go Fest. 'So for his birthday this year we got tickets & we have been counting down the days. 'Having a young adult son like Zach is just the absolute dream & spending time with just us two doesn't happen often but when does my soul regenerates. 'To the moon & back Zach! BEST POKEMON TIP EVER!' Fans have been given an insight into Stacey and Joe's family this year after the couple signed a lucrative deal with the BBC for a reality show. The first series of Stacey & Joe aired earlier this year and saw a dedicated audience tune in to learn more about the celebrity couple's life at Pickle Cottage in Essex. In one scene which seems a far-cry from their trip to Paris, Stacey and Zach were filmed clashing after the teenager held a party which didn't finish until the early hours. In the dramatic scene, Stacey screamed: 'Right, it's not cool and it's not clever. I am happy you had a great time but the party is over!' She also insisted that her son clean up after the party, before teasing Zach about his friends doing the job for him. It prompted an angry response from the 17-year-old, who bellowed: 'No, what're you doing - you're p****** me off!' Dramatic scenes such as Stacey's row with Zach have reportedly earnt the show a second season after BBC bosses noticed Stacey's popularity. In an interview before the new series aired, the celebrity couple opened up about teaching their six children the value of money. Stacey - who is worth an estimated £5million - revealed their children earn their pocket money through chores at the family home Pickle Cottage, and in the future they will have to find their own way in life. 'We don't have some sort of inherited wealth that we can pass down for generations. It's really important for them to know that this is our career and we will support our family in whichever way we can, but eventually they are their own person,' the Loose Women star told The Mirror . Stacey, who shot to fame as a teenage mum on The X Factor, added that it was her photographer dad who instilled the importance of financial independence in her. 'My dad didn't treat us any differently, as soon as we got jobs, we had to contribute. I was excited to earn my own money and be financially independent. I want my children to be excited for that too,' she said. 'It's a wider picture of their self-worth and their happiness in general. I want them to feel accomplished and have things.'
Yahoo
01-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
My 6-Year-Old Son Drowned In Our Pool. Here's What I Wish I Had Known To Keep Him Safe.
When my son Zachary drowned in our backyard pool, I never dreamed that 15 years later, in the midst of a global pandemic and a severe lifeguard shortage, that his younger brother Henry would step up to pursue a job as a lifeguard. Henry now stands among the ranks of water-safety first responders, and his new position serves as a meaningful living remembrance on what would have been Zachary's 21st birthday. I'm still overwhelmed with emotion when I think back to that horrible day in 2007, the day that changed our lives forever. Each traumatic detail is etched into my memory ― the chlorine scent, the reflection of the late afternoon sun on the pool, the sweaty humidity, the piercing screams. The chaos of my son's drowning death comes rushing back in a wave of indescribably intense pain. It was a searing July afternoon, just two months after our fourth child, Sydney, was born. We had just moved into our dream home, and the family swam and played in our brand-new backyard pool. Zachary, then 6, showed off his swimming skills (thanks to an excellent program at his summer camp). Little did we know an unexpected tragedy beyond our wildest imagination was about to unfold. We believed we'd done everything to follow measures to keep our family safe. The pool was in full compliance with town safety codes that mandated fencing and door alarms for entrances to the pool area. Our children had taken swimming lessons; they were strong and comfortable in the water and always closely supervised. We couldn't know that the pool's drain cover was defective and had become loose, removing the barrier between swimmers and the powerful vacuum pump that can exert hundreds of pounds of sucking water pressure. In an instant, the strong suction from the drain had trapped Zachary's arm, holding him underwater. We were unable to free him until we were able to shut down the power to the pool. In the months that followed his death, we reeled from our loss. We tried to make sense of it and wondered how we could recover as a family and give meaning to a young life cut short so unfairly. The more we learned about water safety statistics ― that drowning is the leading cause of unintentional death for children between the ages of 1 and 4 and is the second-leading cause of death for children younger than 14 ― the more we knew we wanted to prevent other families from ever having to experience the loss of a child from drowning. With Zachary as our inspiration, we formed The ZAC Foundation a few years later. Over the last decade, the foundation has provided free swim camps for more than 20,000 kids around the country (especially in urban areas), has awarded grants for water safety education and research, and fostered partnerships to develop community-based drowning prevention plans in four large cities. Importantly, The ZAC Foundation has contributed toward the development of a national Water Safety Action Plan, designed to educate everyone (from homeowners to aquatic center personnel) about best practices to promote water safety and prevent drowning. Our entire family has been engaged from Day 1 on this journey to build the foundation. So it was no surprise that Henry said, at my suggestion, that he was 'all in' to become a lifeguard. Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the American Lifeguard Association reported a whopping 40% to 50% staffing shortage at swimming areas across the country. These are well-paying jobs requiring skill and grit. I was confident that Henry ― a very strong, skilled swimmer and someone hyper-aware of the importance of water safety ― would make a highly competent lifeguard. On the first day of his training, Henry had to dive to the bottom of the deep end, retrieve a brick and swim with it to the shallow end. Even though he was strong and played sports, he found it hard to do, and at least two of his fellow students couldn't complete the task. When Henry came home and told us about the exercise, we couldn't help but wonder if we had made the right decision. Would he be able to handle the physical rigor and emotional stress of this job? And could we? Getting safety-certified wasn't easy. Henry nearly missed his sister's eighth-grade graduation due to lifeguard training. But he persevered, earned his certification and was hired at a pool in our community. From the get-go, he was hyper-vigilant. On his first day at the pool, he surprised his peers and supervisor by proactively asking them to locate the safety equipment. For Henry, water safety was not an abstraction. It was urgently real. He fully understood the importance of safety training and safe pool management. As statistics bear out, drowning incidents happen all the time ― even when lots of safety precautions have been taken. It is terribly easy (even typical) for a parent or caregiver to become distracted while watching toddlers play in the kiddie pool and, even worse, while also trying to keep an eye on their older kids in the main pool. It happens! For lifeguards, unanticipated dangers lurk everywhere. Many pools are overcrowded, and it can be difficult to monitor children who become hidden. In larger pools, sightlines are often obscured by columns and curves. Glare on the water can mask danger. And unanticipated distractions for the lifeguard can be especially risky. Despite warnings from well-intentioned friends in the drowning prevention movement, the pitfalls and risks (emotional and otherwise) never overwhelmed Henry. I feel deeply touched by his seriousness and courage, given the tragedy we had lived through with Zachary. By the end of the summer, the closest Henry came to rescuing someone was when he offered to help an older gentleman navigate the pool stairs on his way out. The man gruffly rebuffed the offer, but Henry stood nearby to make sure that the man was able to safely hold his footing. No family should ever have to endure the loss of a child. When a parent turns to me, with fear and sympathy in their eyes, they will often ask how they can learn from Zachary's loss and prevent this from happening to them. We share easy-to-remember lifesaving tools, like the ABCDs of drowning prevention. There should always be an Adult present with eye-to-eye contact on the child swimming. Barriers, like fences and gates, are a must for restricting children's access to the water. Families should enroll in Classes ― swim lessons for kids and CPR training for adults. Drains should be regularly inspected for broken and/or loose covers. And proper lifesaving Devices, i.e. U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jackets, should be worn at all times in open water. After our family's devastating loss, I never would have imagined that my other children would take on what has become my life's work. Maybe Henry didn't realize what the impact would be for me when he agreed to try lifeguarding, but his decision made me deeply proud. His willingness to be vulnerable and address our family's trauma head-on is a source of strength and hope. During the year of Zachary's 21st birthday, I look back and feel grateful for life's lessons learned and the opportunity to hopefully prevent a tragic loss for others. This piece originally ran in June 2022 and is being rerun as part of HuffPost Personal's 'Best Of' series. Karen Cohn co-founded The ZAC Foundation in 2008 with her husband, Brian Cohn, after their 6-year-old son, Zachary Archer Cohn, drowned when his arm became entrapped in a pool drain. Zachary's memory is the inspiration for the foundation's mission and activities. The ZAC Foundation has funded free water safety and swim camps for more than 20,000 children in at-risk communities nationwide and is spearheading the development of drowning prevention plans in four U.S. communities in the hopes of reducing the national drowning rate. Through her role at The ZAC Foundation, Karen has testified before congressional subcommittees as well as before state and federal agencies, including the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She has written about water safety issues for major media outlets and is also a Northeast Trustee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Do you have a compelling personal story you'd like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we're looking for here and send us a pitch. My 15-Year-Old Student Died Of Cancer. He Gave Me A Life-Changing Gift I Never Expected. My Toddler Wears a Leash. Here's What It Taught Me About Parenthood. My Daughter's Rare Disease Was A Mystery For Years. Here's How We Finally Got A Diagnosis.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
Hundreds gather for Memorial Day Ceremony at Louisiana National Cemetery
ZACHARY, La. (Louisiana First) — Hundreds gathered at the Louisiana National Cemetery for a Memorial Day ceremony to honor those who gave their lives in combat for our freedom. As a bagpiper performs 'Amazing Grace,' loved ones of fallen soldiers and those who want to give thanks for our military take time to remember the cost of speaker, Colonel Darren Spears, a decorated war veteran, said the day has personal meaning for him, since he lost his good friend in battle.'Doc Stevens was killed in action,' Spears said. 'He was killed in action by an improvised explosive device, or I.E.D., as you may know it, that detonated under the left rear tire of the Hum-V he was riding in on that morning patrol. My heart sank. My mind raced in a thousand different directions. I immediately thought of his wife and now four-month-old baby girl. Many other service men and women have similar stories as I do, but they are nowhere near the level of importance of the sacrifice of one to lay down his or her life in defense of the country they love.' The day's events included the pledge, national anthem, prayers and wreath laying ceremony. Organizer Ryan Hannon served in the military as well. 'It's important to keep everybody's memory alive,' Hannon mentioned. The ceremony began at 11 a.m. and lasted for an hour, ending with a gun salute and who lost loved ones laid flowers on their graves, while honoring their sacrifice.'Every hot dog, every hamburger, every spin around the lake or drink with friends and family, is a debt purchased by others,' Spears said. Organizers of the ceremony said they work year-round to make the event meaningful. Hundreds gather for Memorial Day Ceremony at Louisiana National Cemetery IMS opens ticket renewal for the 110th Running of the Indianapolis 500 Three Orleans Parish Jail escapees recaptured on Monday, two still at-large Florida man survives alligator attack before being fatally shot by deputies What if the most exciting cars today are Korean? Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
