<\/p>\n
Samuel Gordon lived a simple life.<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t drive, he loved nature, and he wanted to study bugs, rocks and plants for the rest of his life, said his mother, Jeanette Phillips.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t like to wear clothing with name brands on them,\u201d Phillips said Tuesday. \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to advertise for anybody. He just wore what was comfortable and what he could find at the thrift store. He was a simple person.\u201d<\/p>\n
He died early Tuesday after he was shot in the stomach during a home invasion in Durango\u2019s SkyRidge subdivision.<\/p>\n
Gordon, 20, was rushed to the hospital and died during surgery, Phillips said.<\/p>\n
A chaplain at Mercy Regional Medical Center told her that he\u2019d never seen a gunshot victim who was so calm. Gordon complained that his leg hurt, she said, even though he had been shot in the stomach.<\/p>\n
After being told that he didn\u2019t make it through surgery, Phillips spent a few last moments with her son\u2019s body before it was taken to the mortuary. She then went to her son\u2019s house at 253 Jenkins Ranch Road to see if she could learn more about what happened.<\/p>\n
One of his friends who was at the townhome during the incident said Gordon was calm, collected and alert after being shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was telling them, \u2018Oh, you shouldn\u2019t have called the ambulance. That is going to cost too much money,\u2019\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
Gordon, who attended Southwest Open Charter School in Cortez, did dual enrollment with Southwest Colorado Community College in Mancos so he could start Fort Lewis College in fall 2014 with pre-credits, she said. He was attending college classes Monday through Friday in hopes of graduating early.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was extremely intelligent, gifted and talented his entire life, literally in the gifted program,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cHe could read at 3 years old. He was so smart \u2013 absolute genius.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a high school yearbook, Gordon wrote that he hoped people could one day live symbiotically with the planet, said Jennifer Chappell, director of Southwest Open Charter School. He also wrote that he hoped people could see themselves as individuals, aspiring to do what they want in life rather than being told what to do, she said.<\/p>\n
In the same yearbook, Chappell said one student wrote: \u201cOne day, Sam Gordon is going to save the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c(Sam) was an ambassador of the natural world and a philosopher who challenged us all to think critically about ourselves and the world,\u201d Chappell said.<\/p>\n
Gordon, who majored in environmental and organismic biology, wanted to do work in nature as a forest ranger or something else, his mother said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to work for National Geographic and travel the world and be that guy who went into creepy caves and discover new bugs or something,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cHe thought that was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was an avid recycler and shopped at thrift stores, not because he couldn\u2019t afford new clothes but because he didn\u2019t want to be wasteful, she said.<\/p>\n
Gordon was born Dec. 14, 1995. He is survived by his mother and three sisters: Natasha Gordon, Raquel Lucero and Elizabeth Schnell. No services had been planned as of Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Natasha Gordon called her brother \u201ca sweet kid.\u201d \u201cHe was so easygoing and gentle-natured. He was loved by everyone who had the privilege of having him in their life,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t just love the world, but he taught others how to use their love to change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julie Korb, Gordon\u2019s biology professor at Fort Lewis College, said Gordon emailed her at 7:16 p.m. Monday about an internship he was trying to set up.<\/p>\n
She called him \u201csuper dedicated\u201d and \u201cextremely bright.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was one of the most dedicated students and was actively doing everything to set himself up to go into a career to protect the environment and the nature that he loved,\u201d Korb said. \u201cIt\u2019s just really upsetting that something like this could happen to such an amazing individual.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wouldn\u2019t even hurt a fly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matt Wilson, owner of Four Corners Whitewater, said Gordon had obtained his rafter\u2019s guide certification and planned to do some trips this summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just seemed like a kid with a lot of promise and a lot of drive \u2013 a whole life ahead of him,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI\u2019m just totally blown away. It\u2019s a total waste. A bunch of lives have been wrecked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Journal reporter Jacob Klopfenstein contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" student called \u2018ambassador of natural world\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[133,255,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-courts","tag-death-and-dying","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104876"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}