Hamburg, Ashley County, Arkansas - A family’s tragedy on February 22 has resulted in a boon for the Carousel School in Crossett.

Chris Edwards of Ward, whose son, Dustin T. Edwards, died from injuries he received in a two-vehicle auto accident, on Tuesday donated all of his son’s clothes and toys to the school, as well as a check for $1,083. The boy’s father made the donation as a memorial to his son and in appreciation of the services that the school provided for the boy while he was a student there.

“Dustin was diagnosed with a mild case of autism. and he had a very strong learning and speech disability. "Needless to say, I was very upset when I heard this news from the doctor,” the father recalled. “Dustin was uncontrollable at times and did not want to learn anything or speak to anyone.”

Then, he said, “Dustin was enrolled in the Carousel School in Crossett where he started learning and speaking with such accuracy and integrity that it was almost as if Dustin did not have any signs of autism.”

“The teachers are great at the school and I am indebted to them for their patience and understanding of his disability,” Chris Edwards said. “Dustin became one of the smartest kids there, and in a short time knew his shapes, colors, numbers, alphabet, and with a little help from me, his knowledge of seventeen dinosaurs. This really astonished the teachers and Dustin was actually telling the teachers a thing or two about the dinosaurs.”

The boy’s father also recalled the time of the tragedy: “When Dustin died, I was holding him in my arms, and I cried and cried. I started thinking of the past when Dustin was born and the four years I knew my son. I then thought of other children at his school with the same disabilities that Dustin had, and I knew right then what I was going to do for them and the school.”

As a result, on Tuesday, April 10, he donated all of Dustin’s learning toys and other little play toys to the school and all of Dustin’s clothes to a child that needs the clothes. There was also a donation of $1,083 from Dustin’s memorial fund to the school. “This donation is to help the school with what it needs to educate the children with learning and speech disabilities and autism,” he said.