Inside the Burris home, a guitar sits in its corner of the living room. A music stand holds sheets of music, where Nicholas Burris, called “Cruz” by his loved ones, would strum along to The Beatles, Queen and Chuck Berry. Rhonda Burris will miss hearing her son’s fingers plucking, moving across the strings. The 15-year-old could pick up songs quickly and had even begun to write his own. Cruz’s parents believe he could have gone far in his musical pursuits. Some days he dreamed of being an engineer for NASA, and other times he would say he wanted to become a contractor. Either way, they said, Cruz was bound to do something great. “There’s nothing Cruz couldn’t do,” Andrew Burris said. Though he was a freshman at Lansing High School, students of all ages would greet him in the hallways — including the seniors. Cruz told his mother, Rhonda Burris, that was his favorite thing about school. “‘People know me,’” she recalled him saying.
Source: KC Star Local News
