Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – John Brown was remembered as a funny, caring and hardworking young man during a celebration of life on July 27 in Orange Beach.

John succumbed on July 24, 2022, to a lifelong battle with a heart condition he was born with. He died about two months after joining classmates as the first graduating class from Orange Beach High in May of 2022.

His sense of humor really stood out during the two-hour celebration at the Orange Beach Senior Center. One of his best pals, Guss Bachman, may have told the funniest tale of a trick he and John pulled on another best pal, Logan Rice.

“This one time we were at a house and I was in the garage and I found this huge container of rainbow glitter,” Bachman told the gathering. “I slid it into my pocket. When we were driving and I passed back to the back seat and John without a word grabbed it. And, then he just understood the assignment.”

So, they devised a plan to surprise Rice with a glitter show.

“Logan was doing something and we put half of this thing of glitter all over Logan’s ceiling fan,” Bachman said. “We were waiting and anticipating all day. We were just sitting on the bed and Logan walked in and flipped the light on and it was like watching it in slow motion. You could draw in the glitter on the floor. Logan’s entire room was covered in it. After that, every time I would go to his house, I’d see these sparklers. It was pretty awesome.”

But they weren’t done with the glitter show. It would have an encore performance.

“Not only did he put it on the ceiling fan, we put it in his truck,” Bachman said. “It was really not cool. But it’s funny. We put it all over the sun visor so he was just driving and having fun and then a little bit of glitter popped out from under and then swoosh, it was everywhere. It was pretty awesome.”

After John’s passing, Bachman played a little joke on him as well with a favorite picture of John taken with a cellphone that he turned into a painting of his friend.

“We were sitting in the garage one day and I took out a phone to take a picture of him with his eyes closed and as soon as I took the picture, he opened his eyes,” Bachman said. “So, it was like this terrible picture of him so I painted it. I was like ‘I want you to hang this above your bed so you can watch you every night.’ He said if he ever went away that he wanted me to have the painting back so now it watches over me in my bathroom.”

John’s drama teacher, Darren Butler, also noted John’s great sense of humor, saying he was the class clown but “in the best possible way.” And, most of his roles in productions during his high school days were comedic.

One day he came to Butler and said he’d like to give a more serious role a try. It was in a one-act play written by Butler called The Last Mile. Butler had decided, even though it was the first year having a class at Orange Beach, he wanted to enter it into a state competition.

 “A couple of days before we auditioned this thing, he got real serious,” Butler said. “And, I thought there must be something going on with John. He said ‘I really want to audition for the soldier part. I know I’m really kind of a funny person and a funny character.’ But I said you can still audition for it. That’s fine.

“He auditioned and he was incredible.”

Incredible enough that he was named an all-star of the competition.

Grandmother Elizabeth. Walker talked about how incredible it was that John was on this earth for as long as he was and if one doctor had his way, he would have never gotten the chance.

“We had the distinct pleasure of meeting Jonathan Michael Walker Brown when he was 22 weeks in utero,” Mrs. Walker said. “Our daughter Bethy was pregnant with Jonathan and we went to the doctor’s appointment with her. The doctor had said that John was not a viable fetus. They wanted to terminate the pregnancy. And Donald and I stood up and said ‘take your hands off of our daughter.’”

They sought a second opinion and even though this doctor said it was going to be a bit of a long shot, he oozed compassion.

“He looked at Bethy and did a sonogram,” Mrs. Walker said. “He said ‘what are you going to name your little boy?’ We were there with her and she said ‘oh, it’s a boy?’ And he said again, ‘what are you going to name your little boy?’ He said ‘OK John, me, you, grandma and grandpa, we’re all in this together.’ He said chances were he’d never be born. But he was born. We were in the delivery room with them and I got to hold his head as he was coming on out. Bethy was a trooper and Jonathan Michael Walker Brown made his entrance. He touched our lives in ways that … we miss him so much I just wanted to share.”

Among those who also spoke were Orange Beach School Resource Officer Carter Lowery, Rice’s mom Chasity Rice and his mom Beth.

Officer Lowery: “I’m the SRO supervisor so when we first got our high school and middle school you guys remember when they were all there on the same campus. I was standing out there with the other SROs and someone walked by in a taco suit. I looked over at one of my guys and say ‘what’s with the taco suit?’ That’s John Brown. I went, ‘I like that kid.’ I was a fan from day one of John’s.”

Chasity Rice: “If he came into a room I was in he always said ‘I love you, Logan’s mom.’ And, I always said ‘I love you, John.’ We will miss him, we all miss him, we all love him and so thankful to have been his second mom and grateful to Beth to share him.”