Jackson Bokenkamp, the warm-hearted adventurer who made lifelong friends from California to Nebraska, Oregon, and beyond, died Thursday, August 13, in Dallas, Texas. He was 22.
His death was caused by complications from and enlarged heart, the result of an undiagnosed medical condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Anyone who knew Jackson could tell you his heart was larger than most.
Jackson was a master of undertaking new experiences, especially those active and outdoors. His love of the open air was formed across an eclectic jumble of spaces, from the hay bales of Nebraska to glaciers in Switzerland and beaches and hikes up and down the Pacific Coast.
His endless curiosity trailed him into the classroom at Kearney Senior High School, in Kearney, Nebraska, where Jackson was an active member of Student Council, FBLA, and both the varsity soccer and tennis teams.
After graduating with honors in 2022, Jackson roamed west to attend college at the University of Oregon. Between classes, making new friends, and pickup games of flag football, he served as a Faculty Liaison for ASLA Oregon and was a DEI Committee Member for the University’s Department of Landscape Architecture. He also studied in the Galapagos Islands with the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities and Landscapes program. Outside the classroom, he volunteered at Eugene’s Adventure! Children’s Museum and worked as a counselor at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry’s Camp Gray on the Oregon Coast. But perhaps his most fulfilling work was at the University of Oregon’s Men’s Resource Center, where Jackson advised young men struggling with stress, anxiety, self-doubt, and loneliness. In 2026, he graduated magna cum laude from the University of Oregon, earning his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the School of Architecture and Environment.
Before commencement, Jackson was hired by the Dallas-based landscape architectural firm, Studio Outside, where he began his professional career as a landscape designer in July. While his time with the company was brief, being a stranger in the new city embodied Jackson’s craving to meet new people, embrace the unknown, and, in his own words, “seek discomfort.”
Jackson Thorne Bokenkamp was born on December 3, 2003, in Burbank, California, the first of two children to Jonathan Bokenkamp, a writer, and Katherine Scott Bokenkamp, a public school teacher.
His early years in the Golden State introduced Jackson to the joys of the Pacific Ocean, walks in the LA Zoo, the unmatched brilliance of Looney Tunes, and the love of many cherished friends. But Jackson’s greatest California adventure was holding his baby sister, Eleanor Bokenkamp, for the first time in January 2007. That night, in the same hospital where he was born, the child’s eyes smiled as if they were drawn by Walt Disney himself. He was made whole.
Jackson was quietly protective of his sister, a trait that never withered. Of course, the two would bicker like siblings. He would often grab the spotlight or the larger donut, but Jackson and his sister thrived like dance partners: sometimes awkward, always smiling, and beautiful to watch together. In a recent thank you note after graduating college, Jackson wrote to Eleanor: “Having a little sister, I often feel like I have to be the one with ‘wisdom,’ but with you it feels more like equals. You truly are mature beyond your years, and if you keep trusting what your gut tells you to do in life, you’re going to be so fulfilled.” He was speaking from experience.
In 2007, before grade school, Jackson’s family relocated to his parents’ hometown of Kearney, Nebraska. There, he had the fortune of being adored, not only by all four of his grandparents, but all four of his great-grandparents as well. It would seem his gentle nature was shaped, in part, by his ability to love and relate to his elders.
Jackson was born with emotional depth beyond his years, and his mother showed him how to use it. She taught him the important things: never pass a child’s lemonade stand without stopping and always tip the street musician. She taught him decorum, silliness, and how to savor the perfect bite. As a teacher, she passed on her most important lessons to Jackson and is the reason he carried a strong instinct to protect and care for others throughout his life.
Still, he was a boy. Messy. Competitive. Passionate. Jackson was a ball-bouncing, bottle flipping, football-loving lunatic. He was always hungry. He never stopped moving, and his commitment to Nebraska football was shatterproof. Pizza Hut. Cornhuskers. Heartbreak. Repeat.
In fifth grade, his father’s work brought Jackson and his family back to Los Angeles. When his parents explained that they were moving, Jackson was heartbroken. His family was in Nebraska. His friends were in Nebraska. Daniel. Alex. Creed and others. He was 10 when he had to say goodbye.
Overnight, Jackson was the new kid. The shy kid. The kid from that place nobody could find on a map. He leaned on his sister, became closer to his parents, and then, as if something unlocked within the boy, Jackson decided to say “yes” to everything touched by the California sun — improv class, track team, body surfing, and band. He fell in love with oysters and movies and close-up magic. And more than anything, he made friends. He traveled with his grandparents and got lost in Spain. He fell in love with golf and sushi and with people who looked nothing like him. By forcing himself to hug whatever stood outside of his comfort zone, Jackson blossomed, and it was beautiful.
In 2017, his family moved back to Nebraska. By this point, Jackson was in 7th grade and coming home was more challenging than he might let on. The fourteen-year-old was as much a City Slicker as he was a Country Mouse, and few understood what it meant to be from a dreamed-up place like Cali’braska.
By his nature he was modest, but he was forced to navigate a spate of assumptions and stereotypes that people had about who he was. Jackson countered that by being brazenly authentic. As a result, many versions of Jackson sprouted; one explored religion, another learned to cook, the athlete became a teammate and the friend a confidant. COVID was a gift that gave him more time with his family. He baked with his mother. He dissected films with his father. Somehow everything became deeper and more vivid.
During this time, Jackson’s work ethic expanded, too. He understood that his family was privileged, but he had zero interest in handouts, so he went to work. He taught kids soccer, sold concessions at baseball games, he opened a car detailing business, and shoveled rock for the local landscaping company.
When he graduated from Kearney Senior High School in 2022, Jackson knew that staying in Nebraska for college wasn’t an option. He loved his darling Cornhuskers, but his compass pointed west to the University of Oregon.
It was in TrackTown where Jackson met fellow Nebraskan Henry Schadwinkel and Archie Rohden, whose family had deep roots in Iowa. The Midwestern trio became fast friends, dubbing themselves “The Corn Boys,” and launched a podcast under the same name. In Jackson’s heart, he had brothers, and they were inseparable. The Corn Boys got a perfectly dumpy house together, they cooked together, they played intramural sports, and fought, and had long, late-night conversations about relationships and stress and what life might look like after college.
By the time he graduated, Jackson was coming to the realization that he didn’t need to please anybody but himself. He needed to decide who he wanted to be.
From the moment he could talk, Jackson was exploring, but as he grew older, his curiosity turned inward. It was as if he decided to move away from exploring new places and experiences and instead began to explore his own emotional self. It was beautiful to watch.
He began to walk slower. He worried less. He journaled, and read, and prioritized his mental health in a way that gave him a soothing confidence. Jackson became an eager listener in recent years. He got into amazing shape. He was comfortable with silence and fearlessly candid, even if it was sometimes awkward. He wanted to talk about how you were feeling, and what you needed, and if you felt like you were oversharing, he might shift in his chair and flash a narrow smile that insisted you were in a safe place to talk about things that really mattered.
In the end, Jackson still loved to “seek discomfort,” but it seems the space that he was exploring was the shape of his own heart, and he invited others to join him. The word he frequently used to describe his new approach to life was “intentional.”
The great irony of Jackson’s passing is that the kid was born an old soul to begin with, and only recently had he discovered himself and all the love he had to share. In a recent journal entry, Jackson wrote, “…being outwardly loving toward others has been so great. It’s honestly made my mood so much better. I can’t wait to keep doing that because literally no one is stopping me from spreading love. It’s an infinite joy source. Gratitude and authenticity are a beautiful thing.”
We will never know all the ways Jackson would have continued to impact and inspire the people around him, but we can honor what he stood for. We can lead with gratitude, slow down, write that thank you note, take that chance, watch Looney Tunes and laugh, turn off our phones during dinner, hold the door for a stranger, say hello to the new kid, get out of our comfort zone, laugh some more, scare ourselves, believe in Big Red, and tell our mothers just how fucking much we love them. He would tell us to do all these things and more, because, as Jackson knows, this life is as beautiful as it is fleeting.
