Elijah Oliphant

Elijah Anthony Oliphant was born on January 19, 2001, in Dallas, Texas to Gregg and Kim Oliphant. He was the first born to this union and the third oldest of their four children.

Elijah had an independent spirit about him from a very young age. He developed an interest in Hot Wheels and Sponge Bob. He had a very extensive collection of Hot Wheel cars and still received them as gifts throughout all of his years. He could also quote any line from a Sponge Bob episode. Up until his final days, Sponge Bob could break him up into a belly roll laughter. At a very young age, around three or so; Elijah stated that he wanted to play golf. Upon asking him why did he want to play golf…he responded, “because God wants me to play.” A call was quickly made to his father and the search began to find him a coach. He played golf with the Duncanville High School varsity team starting with his freshman year through his senior year.

Elijah was definitely a person that loved humor. He was often considered a class clown at times. He loved laughing. It was during his middle school years that he developed a love for gaming, Heelys, and computers. During his middle and high school years he attended annual computer camps at Southern Methodist University. In addition, he attended Pine Cove Christian camps during the summers. His hobbies included Rubik’s cubes. He had a vast collection of these. He could solve any of them in a matter of seconds. He stated that he did this by “running algorithms in his mind”. He had recently expressed an interest in the bass guitar and was currently learning how to play. He loved Initial D – an anime series. Gaming started out with Call of Duty; and then spanned with Halo, League of Legend, Overwatch, and Injustice. Gaming would be a passion of his till the very end.

He attended The Montessori Academy of Arlington, Harry Stone Montessori Academy, and Duncanville High School where he graduated in the top 10% of his class. This earned him an automatic acceptance into The University of Texas at Austin where he decided to major in Computer Science. During his matriculation as a student at UT Austin, he was a volunteer and participated in two organizations. He volunteered with the Girl Scouts stem center. Elijah served as the Internal Senior Officer for the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).  Additionally, he was a member of the Association of Black Computer Scientists (ABCS), whereby; he received a scholarship.

Elijah had enthusiastically accepted a paid internship at the downtown Dallas location with Goldman Sachs with the start date of June 6, 2022. The organization had already offered him permanent employment should he have met his anticipated graduation date of December, 2023.

Elijah’s radiating light and memory will forever be cherished by his loving and proud parents, Gregg and Kim Oliphant, sisters, Kynia (Ken) Douglas and Taylor Jones; brother, Matthew Oliphant; grandparents, Bessie Morton, Arthur Harris, Sr., Eula Oliphant, and Lawrence (Judy) Kennedy; great-grandmother, Dorothy Morton; aunts, Janell Oliphant, Cobi Kennedy, and Porsche Kennedy; uncles, Mark (Gabriela) Lee, Arthur (Pam) Harris, Jr., Derrick (Heather) Sheppard, Dekari (Alison) Sells; great-aunts, Sarah (Charles) Booker and Lissa Morton; great-uncles, Kenneth Morton, John (Wilma) Morton, and many relatives and friends whom he dearly loved.

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