Not long afterRyan Holdren returned home one evening in March 2021 from his job at Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, the school’s secretary telephoned to tell him that one of their students was on TV. A fire had just destroyed the apartment where 14-year-old Petey Jones lived, killing his older sister Maronique, who had been caring for Jones after the deaths of his parents.
Without hesitation Holdren, then working as a middle school social studies teacher and assistant football coach, texted the ninth grader — whom he’d spent the past two years driving home each evening after practice — with a simple message.
“Hey, I know you got a lot going on,” he wrote, “but if you ever need it, you’re always welcome to come stay with me.” Several weeks later Jones, a football standout and honors student despite his string of personal tragedies, took Holdren up on his heartfelt offer and has been living with him and his wife, Caitlin Dates, ever since.
“We just wanted to give him something consistent,” says Holdren, 35, who is now Jones’s legal guardian. “We wanted to provide him with a place where he felt safe, somewhere he could grow up.”
Over the past three years, Holdren and Dates have watched as the teenager dealt with the lingering trauma of losing his father, Randolph, 40, from a heart attack in 2017, followed by his mother, Bridgette, also 40, from an unknown ailment on New Year’s Day, 2021 — and then his 24-year-old sister just two months later.
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Jones, 17, calls it the “bad times” and says Holdren and Dates’s presence in his life made a major difference.
“They were there for me no matter what, letting me know that I’ll always have a place to call home,” he says. “They’re two angels.”
When Jones first entered Holdren’s life in 2017, their focus was football. The seventh grader—who had only recently lost his dad — wanted to play on the school team but didn’t have a ride home. Holdren told Jones “not to worry” and soon began driving the boy each evening, while Dates, at the time a kindergarten teacher and Holdren’s then girlfriend, would often join them for dinner.
“We spent a lot of quality time together,” says Holdren of a friendship that quickly deepened. “He’s such an awesome kid.”
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The decision to bring Jones into their lives — and Holdren’s choice to become his legal guardian in 2021, with the blessing of Jones’s remaining biological family — was momentous, but it was also surprisingly easy to make.
“We never really even had a conversation about it,” says Dates, 34. “Maybe it was silly of us not to talk about the logistics and all that was involved, but we both just felt like we were doing the right thing.”
Of course, there were adjustments. “I learned pretty quickly that he needed more structure,” says Holdren. “There were a lot of messy rooms and eating in the bedroom.”
But Jones has shown “remarkable” perseverance and personal drive, Holdren says. When he’s not tutoring first graders or working at the mall, the teen — who wants to become a nurse if his NFL dreams don’t materialize — can be found doting on Holdren and Dates’s son Everett, who just turned 1.
“Whenever he comes home from school,” Dates says, “Everett gets a huge smile on his face.”
These days Jones is busy sifting through the stack of college acceptances (13 at last count) that he’s received in recent months. His journey, from a shell-shocked, grieving boy who was once afraid of the dark to a confident young man, has been rewarding to watch, Holdren says.
“Petey’s really an inspiration. To know what he’s been through and what he’s done for himself is incredible. I’ve got nothing but confidence for his future.”
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