‘A social butterfly’: Remembering a special needs student and social director at Queen Creek High

Connor Povar wasn’t expected to live long after his birth. He did and will now be long remembered by those whose lives he touched.

“Connor was born with hydrocephalus, which is water on the brain, and he was born with the most severe case where he shouldn’t have lived a week. He shouldn’t have made it through the birth process. But he did and he became a fighter, and he just fought all his way through his life,” said Connor’s mother, Kelly Povar.

The Queen Creek resident died in December, just a few months shy of his 19th birthday and close to graduating from Queen Creek High School, where he was a “super senior.”

After hearing his story, Mayor Julia Wheatley recognized Connor’s life during the June 4 town council meeting.

“He is remembered so fondly by his parents, his family members, his friends, his teachers, his community members, and even random strangers whose lives he touched,” Wheatley said.

In his last few months at QCHS, Connor acted as a “social director” at the school, where he greeted teachers, staff and students and conducted rounds with the school resource officer.

“We all just collectively said we need to keep him on to be social director and the greeter and so it was unanimous that’s exactly what he needed to do, and he was great at it,” Kelly Povar said.

He excelled even though a series of in-utero strokes left him paralyzed on his left side that made it difficult for him to speak and walk, and he had to be mostly fed through a feeding tube.

Still, Connor, the youngest of six siblings, loved to take walks with assistance, he could say short phrases, and when he said hello, he always gave fist bumps.

“He would say hi to the school nurse, to the receptionist there at the high school, to kids walking in, kids walking out, his teachers — whoever he saw there on a regular basis,” Kelly Povar said. “He would say hi to them and they would always get four fist bumps — never three, never five — it was always four fist bumps, and he would say ‘Have a great day.’ And then he’d be on to the next person.”

Betsey Roath first met Connor when she worked with special needs students at Queen Creek Junior High School. After taking a break during the COVID pandemic, Roath went back to the district and was assigned as a floating aide at QCHS “and lo and behold there’s Mr. Connor.”

“I wasn’t assigned to him right away. He had a one-on-one there at the high school, but I was kind of a floater,” Roath said. “I was there working with all the other special needs kiddos, and his one-on-one had left, so they had asked me to step in because I had known Connor.”

A redhead like herself, Roath called her partnership with Connor “a good match.”

“He made a wonderful prom date. We would have a special prom every year and he would get all gussied up in his suit and I’d wear a nice dress, and they had it for the special ed kiddos,” she said. “He always liked to dress in his suit. I have some really cute pictures of us dancing. That’s another memory that I’ll always cherish.”

After more than 10 years in Queen Creek, Roath decided to move back to Michigan in September to be closer to her family.

“That was the hardest thing to put him on the bus for the last time and watch him go away. Oh, it was hard,” Roath said.

In his last months, Connor got a taste of independent living after his mother suffered a serious heart attack in October, compelling the family to move him to a respite home.

“I just couldn’t take care of him at that time like I used to be able to. I was recuperating. It was really, really hard on me and so we worked together and found him a respite home to go into, and that was hard for me to let him go,” Kelley Povar said. “But I knew that he needed to have his own space, and it was a great little house over in Chandler and he had roommates and kids his age and so we let him go over there so that I could recuperate and get my strength back. And that’s where he passed away. He just died one night in his sleep.”

Kelley Povar said Connor died of natural causes. While she knew it was inevitable, she said Connor’s fighting spirit had her believing that he would live a much longer life.

“I think I had become complacent, I guess. Not thinking this would ever happen. In fact, my husband and I set up a trust and we had set aside resources and people to take care of Connor when we were gone because we always wanted him taken care of and he’d just been doing so well that we thought he would outlive us,” she said.

At the council meeting, Kelley Povar brought items that represented Connors life, such as his favorite book, “The Giving Tree.” She now hopes to get a memorial bench in Connor’s name installed at QCHS.

“Connor used to sit on a bench that was out in the courtyard at the school close to the special needs area and it was under a tree. They got rid of the bench because I guess it was old and needed to be thrown out. So, I’m hoping I can put another one there,” Kelly Povar said. “I want him to be remembered for who he was and for the joy that he spread and the love that he gave to everybody.”

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