Memorial Bullring Bonfire Set for Brooke Ann Coats

It’s been a year of heartache for the classmates, friends and family of Rivervivew High School student Brooke Ann Coats, who lost her life in a Greater Brandon bull ring a year ago tomorrow.

Feb. 18 marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Brooke Ann Coats, whose life and passion for the ring have been memorialized many times since then, including at a Benefit Bull Ride on March 26.

Brandon Patch posted a gallery of photographs from that event on July 7, the day the teen would have turned 17.

Tomorrow night, at the Crosstown Rodeo Arena, where Coats was thrown from a bull at a Remington Rough Stock rodeo, a memorial bonfire will be lit in her memory.

The event, from 6 p.m. to midnight, “will mark the one-year anniversary we lost this beautiful cowgirl,” reads the Facebook invitation.

Parent Nancy Surface was at the Crosstown Arena three days after the fatal accident, with her daughter, Kristen, and a group of Riverview High students who needed a place to mourn and remember.

“This was a girl who wanted to get on a bull and ride. She loved what she was doing,” Nancy Surface said, in a Feb. 23 Brandon Patch article. "She was out here at the rodeo on a Friday night, not going out partying and getting drunk and stupid. She was out here riding a bull. Some people want to run their mouths off on Facebook, where the family is grieving, knowing a mother just lost a child. Let it be.”

Coats’ online obituary noted that she was a lifelong resident of Hillsborough County and a junior at Riverview High, where she was a member of Future Farmers of America and both the swim and tennis teams.

With 228 members, the “R.I.P. Brook Coats, You Will Always Be Missed, We Love You!” Facebook page is replete with status updates about the well-loved teen, whose funeral last year, Feb. 23, at the Stowers Funeral Home in Brandon, drews hundreds of people paying their respects.

There, Bob Heilmann, the principal of Riverview High, was asked by a student if he was okay.

“No, I’m not okay,” he said gently. When a student dies, he then told the Brandon Patch, “it is our child collectively but it is your child as a principal.” With the students and their families, he added, “you share their joys, you share their pains and you share their losses.”

Today, there was a movement to have the school community wear pink, Brooke’s favorite color, and a Facebook status makes notice of the fact that Heilmann was seen doing just that.

At the funeral last year, Heilmann said, “If you stood on line you would see someone from every stage of humanity, every group, every ethnicity, religion and interest group” outside the Brandon Boulevard landmark. “Cowboys and wrestlers, singers and cheerleaders. They’re all here.”

(See: Hundreds Attend Visitation for Brooke Ann Coats)

Last year’s Brandon Patch coverage included an impromptu memorial held Feb. 21 in front of the cross and poster board that marked the entrance to the bull ring where Coats lost her life, on U.S. 301, just north of the Crosstown Expressway.

“My kids are going to hear stories about her, my grandkids are going to hear stories about her,” said Nick Valadez. “She’s going to live on forever.”

(See: VIDEO: Friends Remember Brooke Ann Coats Outside Site of Fatal Bull-Riding Accident)

At the July 7 Benefit Bull Ride for Brooke Ann Coats, her family joined hundreds of mourners at the ring on US. 301. Captured on video was a poem that was read, aiming to capture the spirit of Coats and her passion for bull riding:

Try isn’t blinding  yourself to consequence, it’s facing risk, pressing forth and angling for personal best. Try is your passion for rodeo and the will to persevere. Try is your meddle, your endurance and your heart. Cowboy and cowgirl up.

(For the video, and a gallery of photos, see: Remembering Brooke Ann Coats.)