08/15/2026
Please keep this young man's family, friends and community lifted in prayer!
Wednesday started like a summer day should.
A group of friends from Delta High School in Muncie, Indiana spent the afternoon on a slip and slide in Yorktown. Laughing. Soaking up the last days before school started. The kind of afternoon that gets forgotten by October.
By evening, they ended up on an iron bridge along Gregory Road northwest of Albany, looking down at the Mississinewa River.
The river was not normal.
Indiana had been flooding for six straight days. The Mississinewa was swollen and fast and full of debris. But it was summer, and they were 19, and four of them jumped.
Three of them were pulled out of the water quickly by emergency crews.
Matthew Morey was not found.
His mother Angie got the call that night. His father got it too. His father, a fire captain in Muncie, whose last words to his son before he left that afternoon were four words he has been living with ever since.
"Be smart."
Matthew was always smart.
That is what his mother told the reporter who called her today. Not was. Is. She is still using the present tense because she has not stopped hoping.
Matthew got into the engineering program at Purdue University. He was supposed to leave Sunday. He started at wide receiver. He played varsity basketball for Delta since 2021. His coach reached out and said what coaches say when they mean it.
"You never find a young man so respectful and kind. He was a great athlete, a great teammate, but an even better person."
The Delaware County Sheriff's Office suspended the search Thursday afternoon when the river became too dangerous for rescue boats. Sheriff Tony Skinner said crews would return the moment conditions allowed. Thermal drones have been scanning the banks. A National Guard helicopter has been requested. Angie is headed to that bridge tonight.
She talked to the boys who survived the jump. She knows they are hurting. She is not angry at them.
She is asking for something else entirely.
She wants every child who reads this to go spend time with their parents. Right now. Not later. Tonight.
"You never know when it might be the last time."
A candlelight vigil for Matthew is tonight at 8 p.m. at Union Chapel, 4622 North Broadway, Muncie, Indiana.
If you cannot be there, please stop right now and say a prayer for Angie, for Matthew's father, and for a boy who was leaving for engineering school on Sunday.
Share this so every set of eyes in Indiana sees Matthew's name tonight.
Link in comments to follow the latest updates on Matthew's search.