‘I’d be proud if he were my son,’ instructor says of injured student

Duke Phipps is just a “really nice kid.” Cyndi Wittum, an instructor at Catawba College, had Phipps in her public speaking class last semester and even over to her house for a Thanksgiving meal.

“He played video games with Caleb and Eli (her sons), and he threw a football with Caleb,” she said. He even let them crawl all over him like a tree.

“A really big tree,” she joked. Phipps is a guard on the basketball team.

When she first heard that Phipps was one of the students shot on Friday night, she was scared.

“I wondered if he was OK,” Wittum said, “since he doesn’t have a momma to look out for him.”

Phipps’ mother died when he was young, and his dad and step-mother live in Newport News, Va.

Wittum said Phipps is really close to his grandmother, but she’s not right here in town.

For that reason, she tried to find him Saturday but learned he was with his dad, who drove from Virginia.

“I would hope that somebody would check up on one of my boys if they were far away,”Wittum explained.

“When I heard that the shots were in his hand and leg, I was hoping that it wouldn’t stop him from playing basketball because you can really tell he loves the sport.”

As a student, Wittum said he was first string, too. She couldn’t have asked for more.

“He was real supportive of the other students,”she said. “He’s the kind of kid that shows up in your class, and you think ‘I’d be proud if he were my son.’ ”

She liked him instantly because he had a smile for everyone.

“The other kids were always laughing because Duke would say or do something funny.”

With Friday’s shooting, Wittum said, “I think that it’s going to be another hard semester,”referring to the fire last semester that killed student Andrew Grooms. “Kids that young aren’t supposed to die, and I think it’s been a real shock in a school this small where they all know each other.

“I just hope they’re all more careful about where they go and who they are hanging out with,”she said.

“I think at that age, some of the kids don’t understand that dead is forever.”

Contact Joanie Morris at 704-797-4264 or jmorris@salisburypost.com .