Teen who died in Macon crash was an outdoor adventurer. Mom urges safe driving

A modest country boy who recently died in a Macon truck crash was often garbed in paint-stained clothes, proof of the carefree and crafty nature that a close girlfriend admired.

Alexander Floyd Strebeck, 18, was driving a pickup truck when it crashed into a tree on Aug. 1, on Zebulon Road in Macon. He and a friend, Landon Brooks Lawless, 17, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Logan Adams, a close girlfriend of Alex Strebeck, recalled when he showed up to her house and looked disheveled. He was often covered in paint, she said.

“He was just covered in paint everywhere, he just never cared,” the 17-year-old said. “He was just go with the flow, always getting up to something... and made us find peace in everything.”

When Alex Strebeck, a 2025 graduate of Mary Persons High School, wasn’t doing homework, he hunted, fished, dirt biked, wrestled, boated and drove his pickup truck.

The Forsyth teen and his best friend, Evan Walker, bought a small boat together on Facebook Marketplace this spring to fix up. They spent most days together at lakes and in the woods.

“We just wanted to go out fishing, scrapped up some money,” Walker, 17, said. “He taught me everything I never knew… about hunting, landscaping.”

Kyle Whitehead, Alex Strebeck’s 34-year-old uncle, inspired him to get into heavy equipment and construction work from a young age.

“He had a hammer at five years old, trying to beat down the mill,” Whitehead said, smiling. His nephew liked to create “arts and crafts, baby birdhouses, anything random.”

As a young boy, Alex Strebeck looked up to Whitehead as a “prankster, clown,” he recalled.

“There’s an old saying he used to shout out as a kid. I was there from diapers,” Whitehead said. “His favorite phrase was always butt crack, and we’d all just holler it back at him.”

He often brought that class clown energy to school during a few food fights, according to his mom Jessica Strebeck. He always swore that other kids started the chaos.

“I used to get so frustrated. He’d say, ‘I got in trouble for them doing it, not me, this time,’” Jessica Strebeck said. “He was specific, ‘this time.’”

He had peculiar quirks his mom didn’t understand, but found amusing, like collecting a shoe box of old clothes tags, she said.

“Clothes tags. Who collects clothes tags? I’m like, you strange, kid,” Jessica Strebeck said, and shrugged with a soft chuckle.

‘Dangerous’ speeding

She said her son was the “smartest person I ever knew,” but she was “upset” with how his life ended. She suspected speeding was a factor in the crash, but it was unclear how fast he was driving.

“I speed too, I’m guilty, but damn,” Jessica Strebeck said. “Zebulon Road… almost took us out that day too.”

Alex Strebeck’s aunt has tried to get others to slow down there since the crash.

“I was laughing because she was standing in the middle of the road the other day… to slow people down,” Jessica Strebeck said.

She urged others to drive safely and slow down.

As she said that, engine-revving vehicles sped down the road, apparently not knowing they were passing by a viewing service for the teen Saturday afternoon. Friends and family gathered at Monroe County Memorial Chapel at 86 West Main St. in Forsyth.

Jessica Strebeck said she wants Macon-Bibb County to implement more speed cameras and other safety measures on Zebulon Road.

“It’s disrespectful… and dangerous,” Jessica Strebeck said. “Changes need to be made to prevent more tragedies.”

This story was originally published August 11, 2025 at 8:00 AM.