ARDMORE, Okla. -- A recent Ardmore High School graduate was killed overseas while serving his country over the weekend. On Monday, friends, family, and the Ardmore High School campus are grieving over the loss of Micheal Phillips.

Nineteen-year-old Micheal Phillips lost his life Sunday morning in Iraq while on his way to Baghdad. Ardmore school officials tell us Phillips was a victim of an apparent roadside device.

Phillips graduated from Ardmore High School in 2006. School officials say Phillips enlisted in the Army upon graduation.

Phillips was part of the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Back home, Phillips was standout on the football field as well as in the classroom at his alma mater.

We were told by his former teachers that while he was on leave, Phillips would visit students at the school who wrote letters to him while he was deployed.

"A few months ago before he got shipped out to Iraq, he came by to show me and Coach Smith his uniform. He was proud to be in the service," Ardmore Schools athletic director Mike Loyd said.

Assistant principal & Phillips’ former teacher, Jake Falvey, said Phillips kept in close contact with former classmates.

"He was on leave; he would visit the class that was writing him monthly. They were constantly communicating," Falvey said.

Phillips was known by those who knew him best as “Pokey."