Brother Rice Grad Drowns Weeks Before Heading Off to College

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More than 100 folks including former teachers, friends and parents gathered at Brother Rice High School in Bloomfield Hills to mourn the drowning death of Ikechukwu Onwuzurike, who had just graduated and was weeks away from attending Washington University in St. Louis.

Katrease Stafford of the Detroit Free Press writes that Onwuzurike, 18, of West Bloomfield, died Tuesday after he slipped off of a raft and drowned in southern Lake Huron.

He was pulled from the water about three hours after he was reported missing, the Freep reported. He was not wearing a life jacket.

“It’s just so hard,” Chris Onwuzurike, Ikechukwu’s father said, according to the Freep. “It’s comforting to know I had 18 years with him, but I just wish I had more.”