FLORENCE — R.A. Jones Middle School lost a member of its family last weekend.

        Terrance Williams, 13, a seventh-grader from Erlanger, died early Sunday at Children's Hospital Medical Center of what his family said was complications from a sinus infection. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. today at Florence Baptist Church, 283 Main St.

        Children's spokesman Jim Feuer said Tuesday he could not reach anyone who treated Terrance when he was admitted Saturday. He did not know the official cause of death.

        But R.A. Jones principal Russell Sgro said Terrance's parents told him it was a rare case of a sinus infection entering the brain and not spinal meningitis, as had been rumored.

        “(The parents) quoted from the doctor,” Mr. Sgro said. “It was not spinal meningitis. They brought that up, that some people (had) thought it was spinal meningitis.”

        In addition, Terrance's No. 55 basketball uniform will be retired today. The family will receive the white home uniform, and the school will display the green road outfit.

        Mr. Sgro said it is fitting to include basketball in today's ceremony.

        “He was a basketball player,” Mr. Sgro said. “Terrance was a kid everybody liked. He'd improved so much in basketball. He was really coming along; he was great with his ball-handling.”

        Terry Jackson, a math teacher at R.A. Jones and Terrance's coach on the seventh-grade basketball team, has dealt with athletes dying before. He is also an assistant football coach at Ryle High School in Union, where football players Travis Alig and Danny Arnett died within the past 13 months.

        The suddenness of what happened to Terrance perhaps makes it hurt most.

        Mr. Sgro said Terrance missed school Friday because of a sinus infection — something Terrance often suffered and his parents took care of.

        By Saturday, things were much worse.

        According to a conversation Mr. Sgro had with the family Monday, Terrance was taken to Children's Saturday night. There, hospital officials told the family the sinus infection had caused some swelling, but it was under control.

        Except that it wasn't.

        “The infection in the sinus broke threw the membrane and went into the brain,” Mr. Sgro said the parents told him. “It happened pretty rapidly.”

        Members of the basketball team are expected to be at today's service. Terrance will be buried in Cleveland, from where his family moved. Mr. Jackson said the hardest thing to accept is that children have to learn about death of a close friend so soon.

        “I told my students I think of them as my own,” Mr. Jackson said. “We lost a family member.”

Identity thieves make messes of victims' lives
Ohioans could rise in House hierarchy
More ERs divert patients
Veto a motion? Mayor's power unclear
Chiropractor indicted, accused of fraud
Cincinnati investigates Ky. pedophile suspect
GOP budget triples Luken cuts
Local store may have sold videos to hijackers
Metro warns of rising bus fare, reduced service
New UC course will explore bioterrorism threat, preparedness
OTR poor benefit from mother's rich legacy
Scott Shively, Q102 radio personality, dies
Teachers mad at 'mandate'
Tristate A.M. Report
Two area balloonists part of unofficial record
Use-of-force policy defended by chief
HOWARD: Some Good News
RADEL: Sensitive cop
Duning's court case under way in Warren
Oneida school to be razed
Family helps empty lot become park
Kentucky News Briefs
Sudden death saddens school
Workers could get refunds