In his 18 years of life, Neel Foon was rarely without a smile.
“He had such a joy for life that it was very contagious,” his mother Genie Foon said. “He had a way of making you not ever be mad at him.”
Neel Foon, who was a first-year undeclared student, died March 28 after falling off a cliff at Panther State Beach in Santa Cruz.
Neel Foon planned to major in ethnomusicology and to work in the music industry. He was taking classes in music history and was interested in learning more about the history of South Asian music, Genie Foon said. He had published two tracks to SoundCloud and his mother said he was aiming to release more music later this year.
Foon attended a Montessori elementary school and enjoyed the experience thoroughly. He cried onstage at his sixth grade graduation ceremony after announcing to his classmates he was leaving to another middle school, his mother said.
“Neel was pretty much the same since the day he was born. He did grow and develop, but he was always a very happy child,” Genie Foon said.
Oliver Cooper, Foon’s childhood friend, said Neel was an infectiously happy person and never in a bad mood.
Neel Foon started a rock band with his elementary school friends when he was in sixth grade and played guitar with the same group of friends until his sophomore year in high school.
“He and our friend Gabe were having a guitar battle to see who could play faster, and that was how they were going to decide who was going to play lead guitar in the talent show,” Cooper said.
Genie Foon said her son originally was not planning to apply to or attend UCLA but was excited at the prospect once he was accepted and toured the campus.
Neel Foon attended the Oakland School for the Arts, located about 20 miles south of the the family’s home in Hercules, California. Despite the distance, Genie Foon said she and her husband supported him and drove him to all the events where he played with his band near school.
Genie Foon said Neel was known as a mentor and role model for his fellow students in high school.
In his sophomore year of high school, Neel Foon played the guitar in Oakland’s Got Talent at the Fox Theater and helped reassure the younger musicians with him backstage that they had nothing to be nervous about, his mother said.
Jada Banks-Mace, a second-year psychology student, attended the same high school as Foon and said she always had a soft spot for him because of his good-naturedness.
“I had always said that I didn’t want to … pursue (music), but when he came here, he inspired me to try and pursue it on my own,” Banks-Mace said.
She said she and Foon occasionally collaborated on musical projects and were trying to work on music together this quarter.
Terrence Brewer, a professional jazz musician and Foon’s music instructor throughout high school said Foon was an outstanding musician whom he once featured during a local neighborhood event.
“Right from the beginning, he was a sweet, mellow, happy-go-lucky kid, and that came through from even that first lesson,” Brewer said.
Brewer said Foon’s artistic potential and talent for music were apparent from their first meeting.
“It’s a rare thing to just know what you want and be able to go after it and do it, and he made it very clear to us and so we wanted to support him,” Genie Foon said.
Cooper and Banks-Mace said Foon constantly pushed them to be happy and to follow their passions in music.
“He pushed me to always follow music both with him and without him and try to be the nicest version of myself that I could be, since he was always the nicest version of himself that he could be,” Cooper said.
Foon’s family will hold a musical tribute service for friends and family in his memory in June.