(Photo: Michele Eve Sandberg/Corbis via Getty Images)
A student reporter known for becoming the youngest person to interview a sitting president at 11 years old has died at the age of 23.
Damon Weaver sat down for a 10-minute interview in 2009 with then-President Barack Obama. He asked several questions regarding education in the interview in the White House Diplomatic Room.
On May 1, Weaver’s sister, Candace Hardy, told The Palm Beach Post that he died of “natural causes.” However, no other information about his death has been disclosed.
At the time of his death, he was studying communications at Albany State University in Georgia. He was looking forward to returning to school in the fall, she said.
Hardy described her brother’s interview with Obama as a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“That’s the only way to describe it,” she said, according to the Post. “It was life-changing for him.”
Weaver also interviewed basketball great Dwyane Wade as well as then-U.S. Senator Joe Biden and Oprah Winfrey. He also hoped to pursue a career covering sports after graduation, Hardy said, who said her brother was an inspiration to young kids.
“A lot of people looked up to him,” she said, according to the Post. “With him being so young, he made a way for more students to engage in journalism.”