- Date Of Death: February 9, 2017
- State: New Mexico
Charles Joseph Eckert III (“Chas”) age 27 passed away on Thursday, February 9, 2017, after a lengthy illness. His love of life and beautiful soul will live on forever.
From the time he spoke his first word “ball”, we knew that Chas was going to be a special athlete. His first soccer team “The Blue Sky Hoppers” went 16-0, and most of those teammates went on to be elite players in Albuquerque and beyond. Chas played on the Varsity Hayes Middle School basketball team and on the Varsity Sandia High School (“SHS”) soccer team and was offered a scholarship at Eastern New Mexico University (“ENMU”), but decided to attend the University of New Mexico (“UNM”) instead. After two years at UNM, Chas took a sabbatical to travel to Arizona, California, Oregon and Washington. After returning home, Chas coached the SHS JV soccer team with Stephen Reed and implemented a game winning come from behind strategy that was suggested by his father Charlie.
Chas was very artistic and in his junior year of high school in his ceramics class he made a cheeseburger (his favorite food), which his teacher loved and thought was so funny and creative that he got an A+. He also loved taking and editing photos in his graphics design class. In high school he was known for his creative and wild outfits, which all of his classmates loved. After he graduated, SHS changed the school dress code to no longer allow bathrobes to be worn at school. He had many friends and was a social butterfly, and if you wanted something to do, Chas was the guy to call. No one had anything bad to say about Chas, he brought happiness and sunshine wherever he went.
Chas and his sister Kelsey had many inside jokes and everyday he would make her smile and laugh. When Kelsey was down, Chas was the one to brighten her up. Growing up they would walk to the store to buy candy, spend hours outside playing sports, celebrated holidays together, and would just have a good time together. They enjoyed listening to music together; car rides with his dog Lennon to get fast food or Sonic happy hour drinks, sitting around making jokes, and watching football. They became close friends throughout the years, he was the best brother to her, someone she looked up to, and someone she aspired to be more like. Although she was older, she felt like Chas was her big brother because of his maturity, intelligence, protection, and knowledge of the world. Not a day will go by that he won’t be missed; he made a positive impact on each and every person that he encountered.
