Born January 31, 1999 in Johnson City, TN
Died October 23, 2021 in Orlando, FL. He was 22 years young when he passed.
Joe lived at home in Oviedo, FL with his parents and twin brother.
Although born in Johnson City, TN, Joe only lived there for the first six months of his life after which the family relocated to Pensacola, FL from 1999 – 2000, Ocala, FL from 2000 – 2002, Pensacola, FL 2002 – 2004 and finally settling in Oviedo, FL in 2004.
Joe and his family moved to the Kingsbridge East neighborhood of Oviedo Florida where his brother Nick, mother Lynda, and father Steve still live to this day. Joe attended elementary school at Stenstrom Elementary near their home where he played youth league soccer, basketball and football. Joe was an outdoorsy kind of kid and loved to run and play barefoot throughout the neighborhood. Stenstrom Elementary is a special place for Joe as his mother was and continues to teach there. The connection to the Stenstrom Elementary School family is powerful.
After elementary school, Joe and his brother attended Milwee Middle School, an engineering magnet school in Longwood, FL. While there, Joe was a finalist in the Seminole County Science Fair for his grade level and was a member of the track team. He enjoyed going to school early where he would play pickup basketball before first bell. He also played Oviedo Pop Warner football, and joined the Florida Jets wrestling club. In addition, he became involved in airsoft, a form of simulated combat, where his father, brother, and neighborhood friends would go to play Army.
After middle school, Joe attended Oviedo High School where he made many friends. He also joined the wrestling, football and lacrosse teams but it was lacrosse that he enjoyed most. Fishing was something that he also enjoyed and could often be found with other neighborhood kids and classmates casting lines in the local ponds and lakes. He liked fishing so much that he started a YouTube fishing gear review channel.
Joe and his family enjoyed traveling and having experiences but it was snowboarding that caught his attention. On his first real ski trip to Winter Park, Colorado, Joe quickly mastered snowboarding and began skiing the more aggressive black slopes. This peaked his interest so much that a personal goal was a winter job working at a ski resort.
After high school, Joe took a year off and worked a variety of jobs including pool boy, retail sales clerk at a clothing store in the Oviedo Mall, movie theater attendant, landscaper, and delivery driver. He also started back to school to work on his Associates Degree at Seminole State College but quickly changed to a Cyber Security Certificate Program at the University of Central Florida. During this time, he met and fell in love with his girlfriend Nicole “Nikki” Lyman who has been by his side every step of the way through his cancer diagnosis and treatment.
Joe fought cancer with a great deal of grace, courage and dignity and never complained about the treatment he endured throughout. Not wanting to “sit around” and do nothing while in treatment, Joe turned a passion for Pokemon trading cards and manga graphic novels into a small business where he bought, sold and traded under the business name of “The Duel Shop”. Joe was a lifelong video gamer with a large network of friends and acquaintances. He could often be found online in the evenings with his friends under the long-held gamer tag ir0nc0mand0.
Joe passed peacefully in the arms of his mother and father the evening of Saturday October 23, 2021. He is survived by his twin brother Nick Roche, mother Lynda Roche and father Steve Roche and countless other relatives and friends who love him dearly.
A Memorial Celebration is to be held at the Oviedo Cultural Center Thursday November 4th, 2021 from 6 to 9pm and located at 57 Center Lake Ln, Oviedo, FL 32765. Please come casual and we invite you to join us in shorts and Nike slides as that is how Joe would have wanted it.
In lieu of flowers, please donate to one of the following organizations in Joe’s name:
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: https://givenow.lls.org/give/342076/#!/donation/checkout
American Red Cross: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/
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