Luke Hoyer

To friends, 15-year-old Luke Hoyer was a basketball teammate with a generous smile, a lover of video games, a voracious eater of chicken nuggets.

To his mother, Gina Hoyer, he was simply “Lukey Bear.”

“We would like Luke to be remembered for his contagious smile, laid-back personality, and love for his friends and family,” Hoyer says. “He brought humor and happiness to all those around him.

He was a quiet soul with a big heart. We will never forget who we lost that day and never forget who we live for.”

A native of Louisville,

Colo., Luke loved basketball and college football, especially the Miami Heat and the Clemson University Tigers. (His father, Tom Hoyer, is a Clemson alum.) Luke’s regular haunt: shooting hoops with friends at the Parkland Golf and Country Club, which in October dedicated one of its courts in his memory. Although he played for the Parkland Basketball Club, the freshman planned on trying out for the Stoneman Douglas football team.

His sister, Abby, and brother, Jake, adored their brother’s quiet demeanor and one-word answers, although he “always knew how to make you laugh,” Abby says in the Stoneman Douglas yearbook. “There wasn’t one picture taken that Mom didn’t have to say to Luke, ‘Please try to take a normal picture,’ or, ‘Is that how you want to look in the scrapbook?’ ”

Donations made in Luke’s memory should be directed through Voices for Children of Broward County to the Luke Hoyer Athletic Fund at VoicesBroward.org, which provides sports equipment and training to children for basketball, football and dance, and to StandWithParkland.org, the parents’ advocacy group.