Samuel David

Samuel David of Hickory Township, Lawrence Co., passed away Saturday, Sept. 6. He was 18.

Sam was the tag-along shared child in a large, blended family, amusing and sometimes bedeviling his older siblings. He was a precocious child, full of hilariously big words and sophisticated thoughts, paging through his Presidents' book and announcing which ones were assassinated. He was also a summer regular at Pearson Park pool as a preschooler, charming the middle-school girls. At one point he listed 23 of them as "girlfriends," none of whom appeared to mind sharing.

Sam's love of music showed up early in his awesome moves as a three-year-old wedding dancer and jamming with the cheerleaders at his brother's football games. Later he would ask for piano lessons, then violin lessons, then took up the trumpet in the Laurel Elementary School Band. He moved to Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter school for middle and high school, with a focus in music. There he participated in any iteration of band that had use for a trumpet.

Sam was also a dedicated gamer, which led to a fascination with video game music, which eventually brought him in touch with classical music. He said he was hooked from the first time he heard Dvorak's New World Symphony and immersed himself in Romantic-era music. He declared his ambition to become a composer and began composing pieces of his own. Most kids' dorm rooms have posters of rock bands; Sam had two posters of Tchaikovsky.

In his junior year Sam performed his own pieces twice in piano recitals, and in the final concert of his senior year the Lincoln Park band played "Elegy," an orchestral piece he wrote in memory of a close friend and his piano teacher, who had both died the previous summer.

He had recently begun classes at Westminster College as a music composition major.

Personally, Sam was goofy, messy, allergic to work, filled to the brim with junk food and basically tethered to his piano. He overflowed with arcane facts about dead languages and obscure history, and also thought farts were hilarious. Overall, he was a beautiful soul brimming with talent and possibility, and his loss is devastating.

He is survived by his parents, Brian and Rachael; sister Hanna David Hyatt, who used him to build up her exquisite mothering skills; brother Corey Conway, who loved to walk him around new places and talked to him as an equal; brother Luke David, who led him to embrace new experiences and tried (not very successfully) to teach him to meditate, and brother Matty Conway, who protected him with the ferocity of a lion. Also, by his sister-in-law, Matty's wife Kayla, his most intimate confessor; and his brother-in-law and gaming coach Derek Hyatt, husband of Hanna.

He is also survived by grandparents Roger and Marilyn Zallon of Beaver County, and Joseph David of Indianapolis, and beloved niblings Hugo, Lila and Ruthie Hyatt and Vincent and Mason Conway, as well as five aunts and uncles, 20-some cousins, and many friends and fellow musicians.

The family is planning a memorial service in the next few weeks, with date and details yet to be determined.

Arrangements have been entrusted to the R. Cunningham Funeral Home & Crematory, Inc., 2429 Wilmington Road, New Castle where online condolences may be offered to the family by visiting www.cunninghamfh.com.