Nikina Cunningham

Disiere, Cheryl (Schultz)

Edgar, Jeff

Kelly, Reginald

"Reginald and I wern't close. But I do remember him distinctly. I had PE with him twice and I recall him never screwing around in class. Always being dressed out, never being late, always doing what the coach said. I remember him telling the rest of us that we would be in trouble for cutting class or hopping the fence to go to the Circle K. He didn't horse around or cuss or talk back to the coach. He had this Baptist preacher quality about him. Right down to his old man voice. He too seemed beyond his years."
- Lance Vargas, Nov. 2, 2005

Rani, Ronald

Surrency, Tina

"I remember being a teen-aged boy and looking at Tina Surrency and seeing a real woman. She didn't carry herself like or even resemble a high school girl. To me, she was a twenty-four years old. She wore a confidence that was rare in girls of that age. She seemed years ahead of us. She was headstrong and confident, thinking of her future at a time when simple social hang-ups were on most of our minds. Tina was certainly a shooting star.

When she died, it seemed surreal. It was my first lesson in the astounding chaos that life would serve me again and again as I grew older. But really, I have never again experienced anything like it since. To have someone so alive vanish so quickly was like a punch in the face. It took me years to fully grasp what happened and even now I think back and wonder why myself and Tina's other friends were exposed to such a tragedy at such an impressionable age. What lesson did it teach us? What value could be salvaged from it?

There are times when I experience a bit of survivor's guilt concerning the whole situation. Why am I still living? What did she have to die? Why couldn't she have lived to find her true love, have children, finish a career, look back on her life?

I realize now that the worst part of her death is the "not knowing." We will never find out what would have been. We only know what was. And that is truly a shame. Because I am sure she would have been amazing."
- Lance Vargas, Nov. 2, 2005

Harigel, Erin (West)

"With Erin being a "West" and me being a "Vargas," we had a alphabetic bond throughout high school that developed into a casual but genuine friendship. Wendy Waller introduced us but it was in four years of homeroom that we became friends. Erin was a funny girl and if you were going to be stuck with someone in a line waiting on a class picture or a test score, you could easily do worse than Erin West. She and I shared the same sense of humor, a little biting, a little nonsensical. She could do a great English accent that I have seldom seen matched even 15 years later.

Like Reginald and Tina, she too seemed older than me even though we were in the same class. She had interests that were more mature than mine and I recall thinking that she longed to be done with the pettiness of high school so she could get her life started in the "real world."

Even though she and I weren't "keep in touch" close, I often thought about where she went after high school. Some people you keep in touch with and others you don't and then there are those you hear about and some people you see around town but Erin just disappeared from my life. I always wondered what she was up too. It upsets me that I won't get to hear her hilarious English accent again."
- Lance Vargas, Nov. 2, 2005