SOUTHINGTON - Just months after pinning on flowers at their junior prom, the friends of Christie Manchester, 17, were taking flowers to a makeshift memorial at the site of the car crash that killed her Monday.
"She was such an intelligent person," said fellow Southington schools classmate Brandon Shafer. "She was really a great person."
Shafer said he hung out with Christie every day before school. He lives close to the 100-year-old school building on state Route 534, and Christie came to school early each day with her mother, Bonnie, who works in the office. They spent time together each day, though less recently as Christie had been taking college courses at Kent State University Trumbull Campus in Champion.
She and her friends Kaylynn Barco, 17, and Ellen Becker, 18, had been heading home for the night Monday when Christie lost control of her Pontiac Grand Am and struck a tree on State Road in Champion. She was killed in the accident; Barco is in serious condition at Forum Health Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, and Becker, of Struthers, was in critical condition at St. Elizabeth Health Center in Youngstown, where she was flown after the accident.
Manchester's friends spread the news through late-night cell phone calls and through their MySpace Web pages. On her Web page, Manchester posted her thoughts about life and love.
"People leave unexpectedly," she wrote. "You'll never know all the answers. Sometimes you'll never know the truth. But the best part of knowing this is that, knowing for whatever reason it all happened, in the end it makes you who you are. I'm living my life the way I want to. There's no point going through life trying to impress everyone. ...You only go through life once, and we're not getting outta this alive. So take some chances."
Shafer said he visited with Christie's family Tuesday, trying to be supportive and remembering the good times.
"Once I went with her and and her father to Cedar Point, and we did the bungie jump," Shafer said. "This is so hard, very hard, for everyone."
Maria Pelayo, another senior at Chalker High School, spent Tuesday visiting with Kaylynn in the hospital.
"She's trying to keep positive, smiling, looking for little jokes," Pelayo said. Pelayo said she lived nextdoor to Christie from age 3 to last year. The two girls were close, and was part of the group with Kaylynn.
"It's not real," she said. "I feel like she's going to call me and say, 'Hey best friend, I'm alright.' I'm relieved Kaylynn is going to be OK, but I'm heartbroken over Christie."
Christie was taking computer and history classes at Kent Trumbull, and was hoping to go to college and pursue a career in forensic pathology, Pelayo said.
Sydney Beck, who now lives in Champion, said the night was hard.
"None of my friends got any sleep," she said. Like Shafer, she got the phone call about 2 a.m. informing her of the accident. "Today we all went to the hospital and saw Kaylynn. It was good to see her smiling, but going to the site of the crash was really hard, seeing everyone with flowers."
Southington schools Superintendent Frank Danso said the school board notified the high school student body and staff through the phone messaging system, and also let it be known that counseling would be available for those who needed it.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the family," said Danso.
