Ashland Times Gazette -- LOUDONVILLE -- Spc. Damon G. Winkleman, 23, a U.S. Army combat medic from Lakeville, died in Afghanistan.

Official announcement and details of his death have yet to be released by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Funeral services and arrangements under the care of Byerly-Lindsey Funeral Home, Loudonville, will be announced later. The funeral home said he died Sunday.

Winkleman was a
2004 graduate of Lou-donville High School and the youngest of three sons of Richard "Wink" and Pat Winkleman of rural Lakeville. The Winkleman's are a military family. Father Richard is a U.S. Army Reserve major and brothers Jason and Nathan are both in the Army.

After graduating from Loudonville High School, Winkleman attended Monroe Military Institute in Monroe, Ala., earning a degree in applied science in 2006, when he enlisted in the Army, ultimately becoming an Army medic.

Based in Fort Bragg, N.C., with the 82nd Airborne Division, he was deployed to Afghanistan just a month ago.

Reference to Winkleman prompted fond memories from folks at LHS.

"He was a solid young man, who knew what he wanted, was purposeful and patriotic," said his principal, Ben Blubaugh. "He was a good student, took the most challenging courses and was very hard working, yet he also was a very good-natured youth, full of humor and fun to be around."

Teacher David Spreng went a step further.

"I had him in multiple classes," the biological sciences teacher said. "I often thought if I were to write a book on my teaching experiences, my experiences with Damon as a student could fill three entertaining chapters, all positive. I am a better person for knowing and having the opportunity to teach him."

John Lance was Winkleman's coach when he played football for the Redbirds.

"He was a guard on defense, and played tackle or end on offense," Lance said. "He was a very upbeat kid who worked very hard at practice and contributed all he could to our success as a team. He came from a quality family, and I remember he and both of his brothers fondly from the experiences I had with them as students and athletes."

John Kinkopf, president of Haudenschild Insurance Agency Inc. in Loudonville, remembered Winkleman when he played for his Little League baseball team in the mid-to-late 1990s.

"Damon was very hard working, and also full of fun," Kinkopf said. "Whenever I think of him, it makes me smile. This is a terrible tragedy."

The Winkleman family was remembered in a feature story in the Wooster Daily Record last Thanksgiving season when, for the first time in at least a decade, all four of the Winkleman family were home for the holiday.

"You hold it a little more dear and you take spending time together a little more seriously," Damon said in that story. "There are very few times we get to do this. When we do, it makes it that much more special."