By Rita Howell

Last Saturday night, Betty and David Holmes celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, with friends and family gathered at their home on Cotton Plant Road near Batesville. Early Sunday morning, a dark car pulled into their driveway and two Army officers walked up to their door.

Betty Holmes knew something was badly wrong.

The men told her that her son David Jr. had been killed in Afghanistan. David Sr. walked in his front door moments later to find two uniformed strangers in his living room, and his wife crying.

Georgia National Guard Sergeant David A. Holmes Jr., who had grown up on Cotton Plant Road, gained recognition as a talented artist, worked at the Batesville Pizza Hut, graduated from South Panola High School in 1995, died June 26.

An announcement from the Department of Defense noted that David died at Sayed Abad, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device. He had been promoted to sergeant June 16 according to his sister. He was assigned to the 810th Engineer Company of Swainsboro, Ga.

He and his wife LaTonya made their home in Sandersonville, Ga., with their four children: Daveion, almost 2, Tejuan, 10, Shurissa, 10, and ShuQuita, 14.

David had previously served for four years in the Navy and four years in the Marines. At South Panola High School, he was a member of the ROTC.

This was his first tour of duty in Afghanistan.

He’d never been to Iraq.

Family ties

Around the family home on Cotton Plant Road, there is evidence that the Holmeses are a hard-working clan. There’s a pea patch beside the brown frame house. Two tractors are parked nearby. In the front yard, a few sunflowers are looking up toward the sun. David Sr., 63, is a contractor who formerly worked for many years at Dunlap and Kyle. He is known for his homemade pork sausage.

Inside the home, on the living room wall a frame holds several photos of David, including one with David and Latonya in formal attire at some special occasion. There’s a large photo of little Daveion on another wall.

It’s been several years since David has visited in Batesville, but his calls came frequently, his mother, 58, said.

“The last time I talked to him was last Thursday,” she said. That was two days before he died.

“He said he was tired and ready to go to bed,” she remembered. “He wanted to know how everybody was.”

“Everybody” includes a good many people, considering the extended family connections that include Wrights, Hentzes, and Joneses in and around the Eureka community.

David leaves two sisters, Tina Holmes and Stephanie H. Wicks, and a brother, Jessie Holmes.

David the artist

These days his niece, Tameshia Holmes, 16, is staying with her grandparents. She is the keeper of a special piece of art that David created in 1992, when he was in high school. He had painted a still-life on a piece of cardboard. The neat, graphic-style design pictures a flower and a tropical drink. It’s inscribed with “D’Maine,” David’s nickname.

Linda Massey was David’s school art teacher from sixth grade through high school.

“I remember when I first met him, he and another student were drawing motorcycles. They were drawing them like they were building them, piece by piece.”

David’s focus on art continued throughout his life, as did his connection to Massey.

“The last time I talked to him he was interested in taking up art again, maybe teaching,” she said.

“The last time he left, I just cried.”

David also made it a point to keep in touch with South Panola High School guidance counselor Martha Lynn Johnson.

“He always had plans,” she said.

He’d called her from Afghanistan in recent months.

“He said he liked what he was doing. He felt safe,” she remembered.

The Holmes family has faced tragedy before.

In 1993 David’s sister, Rotissa, died in a house fire. She was 21.

She is buried at Eureka A.M.E. Zion Church’s cemetary, where David’s family expects to bury him.

David’s sister Tina Holmes said David’s widow was “a wonderful wife,” when speaking of David’s burial at Eureka.

“She knew that is what he wanted,” she added.

Arrangements are incomplete as they await the return of David’s body to Panola County.

Please check panolian.com for updates on memorial service arrangements.