The staff and students of Chuckey-Doak High School were struggling this morning to come to grips with the death of a 16-year-old sophomore who apparently shot himself to death near his home on Monday.

Greene County Sheriff Steve Burns identified the deceased student as Johnny Alexander Thompson, 16, of 2234 Baileyton Road.

The sheriff said officers were called to that residence at 2:07 p.m. after family members found the youth's body in a clearing atop a ridge. "He appeared to have suffered a single gunshot wound to the chest," Burns said. "A rifle was found near the body."

The sheriff declined to say if investigators had determined a motive in the student's death.

Members of the boy's family had thought he had gone to school on Monday morning, the sheriff said, but later discovered that his car was at home. They discovered his body while searching for him, according to the sheriff.

Burns said the youth's body was sent to the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City for an autopsy.

Dr. Joe Parkins, director of Greene County Schools, said this morning that counselors and clergymen were assisting C-DHS students, faculty and staff this morning in dealing with the death of Thompson.

Shortly after 8 a.m. today, Parkins said he was en route to C-DHS to join County School Board Chairman David Johnson and Kathy Crawford, the board's vice chairman.

"This is tragic," Parkins said of the student's death. "It seems as though we can't get through a year without something happening to one of our students."