Garrison Hawley, 21, a junior English major from Missouri City, Texas, passed away over the weekend following a brief illness.

Hawley, a popular student around campus, played on the junior varsity basketball team. After playing basketball for the Hightower Hurricanes in Fort Bend County, he came to Texas Wesleyan and was very involved in intramural sports.

“Garrison was a very intelligent, polite and competitive young man,” Brennen Shingleton, men’s basketball head coach, said. “He was always accountable and worked hard to be a great representative of our program and our university. He will be sorely missed.”

Hawley had a passion for writing and music, and had recently performed an original rap in a campus talent contest. Friends say he had planned to attend law school after graduation.

Stacia Dunn Campbell, associate professor of rhetoric and composition, remembers Hawley as an engaged student who loved writing and poetry.

“As his advisor, I remember him as a humble, articulate, hardworking student with strong ties to his faith, his family, and his friends,” she said. “He also had an amazing sense of humor; his classmates have always looked to him for that.”

Counselors at the Glick House Community Counseling Center are ready to help those coping with this tragedy.

A memorial and celebration of the life of Garrison Hawley will be held at 6 p.m. on Mar. 6 in the Sanctuary of Polytechnic United Methodist Church on the campus of Texas Wesleyan University.