Student Deaths 2008

Photo courtesy of the Lopez family.

Nearly

every picture of senior Terra Lopez in the stack on the kitchen table is of her with an animal. Terra with the black-andwhite dog. Terra hugging her white horse. Terra petting a golden retriever.

“She wanted to be a vet,” John Lopez, her father, explained.

Sophomore Desirae Lopez’s photos show her strutting her stuff. Her signature long ponytail seems to twitch back and forth, even in the motionless image. Her face is tough, but the laughter is still in her eyes.

“They loved posing for that camera, but Desirae was a pro,” Theresa McGraw, her mother, said.

The pictures are reminders of Terra’s big, beautiful smile and Desirae’s neverending laugh after the sisters were killed in a one-car accident on Oct. 31. They are John and brother Johnny Lopez’s final glimpses of the girl that adored horses and the girl who loved to dance: the teenage girls who were always laughing, dedicated to their family but also to loving life.

Terra, 18, and Desirae, 16, were driving home from Wichita on I-35 when Terra swerved, probably to avoid a deer, according to her father. Her silver Chevrolet Camaro smashed a guardrail, skidded down an embankment and flipped. Terra and Desirae died on impact.

*** Desirae loved music and her feet always wanted to dance. She danced all night with her friends, wired on Rockstar energy drink. She danced in the car, singing nearly any song that came on the radio at the top of her lungs. She brought her stereo into the bathroom during her typical 45-minute baths.

“She was the best dancer,” North sophomore Courtney Kurtzman said. “She could always out-dance anybody.”

Terra wasn’t as focused on dancing and singing. Sure, her voice would join with Desirae’s as they coasted down Metcalf with Johnny, but her passion was horses. On her feet for close to six hours a day working as a waitress at the Village Inn restaurant in Mission, she lived for the moments when she would be galloping across a field atop Prince Albert.

“She had told me that’s how she relaxed,” Theresa said. “It was her pleasure time; it was how she relaxed from her busy time.”

Sometimes, she even went so far as to bring the horse home with her, John said. He’d come home, after telling her that she couldn’t keep a horse in the yard,

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Freshman

J Crnkovich lay inside his casket, surrounded by Hot Wheels and dressed in his favorite button-up

Hawaiian shirt.

Nearly everyone he had ever known or worked with was there, from the lunch ladies to the principals. They formed a long line past the coffin, sharing condolences and fond memories with his two sisters, his father and his stepmom.

J had lightened each of their lives with his 1,000 watt smile and ever-present optimism. He gave them a new perspective. He showed them what life was like from a wheelchair.

“J loved everyone he met,” stepmom Annie Crnkovich said. “And everyone who met J loved him.” …..

J’s older sister, Mindy, was one of three who stood up to make a speech. She explained how much she missed him and how she would come to miss hearing his voice, at least the voice his wheelchair projected.

J was born with cerebral palsy, a condition that causes the body to lose control of its muscles. He needed a special wheelchair with a feeding tube system and a Vantage, a machine that enables cerebral palsy victims to communicate.

Icons scrolled up the screen in front of him, and J waited 1.2 seconds per icon.

When he found the right one he would push his head against a button and the machine would speak in a monotone, steel voice.

It was this voice that called to someone nearby to scratch his leg when it itched, or change the channel to Tim Allen’s “Home Improvement.” It was this voice that asked to go for a walk down to the Village. It was this voice that greeted the morning waitress at Perkins when he stopped in for coffee with his stepdad Terry.

“J made everyone smile,” Annie said. “Sometimes he would get so excited his face would turn beat-red.”

He helped keep his family optimistic through the rough times. They needed to be with him constantly. He couldn’t swallow, and they needed to make sure that he wouldn’t choke on his drool when they tucked him into bed. They bathed him every day and dressed him in the mornings. He needed to sit in the garage while they mowed the lawn.

They tried to help J live a normal life. He wore a Hawaiian shirt when they took

a trip to Disney World last summer and watched him ride the carousel and pet the animals of Animal Kingdom. He ate breakfast with the whole crew. Goofy and Pluto were his favorites. The hotel had a swimming pool, and J took advantage of his opportunity every day to paddle around. His parents carried him through the water as he tried to flex his unbending legs. They called him “the Frog.” …..

Special needs paraprofessional Joel Crown stood up at the funeral. He said a few words about J and told the funeral goers, “When you see a person like J, be patient. It takes a while to get there.”

J and Crown first met at Highlands Elementary School during fourth grade, when cerebral palsy had limited J to answering questions with a “yes” or “no.”

Crown realized that all the basics - spelling, grammar and literature - had to be dropped. They had to begin with the fundamentals. He needed to communicate.

“There was something in his horrible little body,” Crown said. “There was something inside him that wanted to be normal.”

In the beginning, they worked one-on-one. Crown wore a Hawaiian shirt as he taught J, with Diet Coke in hand. They worked together during the weekdays.

Every chance he got he would visit J’s house. They spent their evenings talking on the front porch.

J made progress quickly, and Crown was able to bring him into a regular classroom. Soon J made friends his own age, not just the special education staff at Highlands. Alisha, Elizabeth and Annie fought to push his wheelchair. Chris waved to him on his way to the pool. Kids would sit next to him at lunch or say hello when they saw him sitting on his porch.

“J loved to talk to people,” Annie said. “He just wanted to be around them.”

The more they worked together, the more J admired Crown. He wanted to be just like him and got his own Hawaiian shirt and strapped a Diet Coke can to the back of his wheelchair. He wanted to grow up to be a teacher.

It didn’t matter if it was summer, Labor Day or Saturday. J wanted to be at school. He liked seeing his friends in the hallways and talking with Crown in their sessions. They began to make more progress with his machine. J was now able to form full sentences and Crown could program new icons into J’s Vantage like the Andy Griffith whistle or “I want to go for a ride in the PT Cruiser.” They soon shared

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After only two weeks at East, freshman J Crnkovich passes away quietly in his sleep, but leaves behind many fond memories.

Photos courtesy of the Crnkovich family.

Photo by Tayler Phillips.

jokes that Crown had programmed into the Vantage.

“What did the judge say when the skunk walked into the courtroom?”

“I don’t know. What?” Crown said.

“Odor in the court! Odor in the court!”

And then J would show his toothy 17-inch smile and chose the next icon.

“That’s a good one!” …...

All three principals from J’s former schools, Highlands, Indian Hills, and East, were at the funeral. His paraprofessionals from East were there too, including his teacher Maureen Johnson. They had worked together one-on-one in math and science, sometimes even cooking.

Johnson had replaced Crown because he forced himself to quit working with J. Middle school was approaching and J would need to meet new people. Crown feared that if J became too dependent on him, J would never experience life as an individual. He lost many of his friends to Indian Hills. Their social lives matured and they had less time for him. They stopped eating lunch with him and forgot to visit. But he still remembered them as he bounced excitedly in his seat when the van passed Highlands on the way to East.

His charm and smile brought new friends at East. He ate first lunch with junior Curtis Wells. They would sit in the coffee shop and talk about cars or Well’s summer vacation to Michigan. Sometimes paraprofessional Joyce Emery would talk with them about her childhood on the farm.

“He was never sad,” Wells said. “When I would come to lunch with him he would bounce in his seat, real excited. He was happy just to talk to someone.”

He had a passion for music. His counselors thought he needed a music course to break up his day and relax him after spending so much one-on-one time in the classroom. He was allowed to sit in the corner of the choir room during fourth hour. He didn’t sing along, but he didn’t make a fuss. Just sitting in the room with so many other students was enough for him.

“At first the kids didn’t know how to react,” Tracy Resseguie, the choir director, said. “Then they would say ‘hello’ to him if they walked by. They appreciated why he was in class and they weren’t bothered by that.”

Soon J grew comfortable too and greeted Resseguie with phrases like, “Mr. Resseguie, you the man,” or “Hey Mr. Clean,” referring to his bald patch, complete

with an icon of the cleaning wizard himself. …..

Some of J’s friends at East showed their support at his visitation, including friends from Pack of Pals. The day before he died J had been to the Pack of Pals picnic, a SHARE project that allows special needs kids to interact with volunteers.

The friends he met at the picnic and the special education department brainstormed ideas to commemorate J after they learned of his death. They planned to lower the flag to half-mast, and to make a banner in his honor. They set out a giant card in the library for the school to sign and share their memories of J. Last Friday the coffee shop donated all profits, $520, to the Dream Factory and the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Greater Kansas City, organizations that fight against J’s condition.

He had died quietly in his sleep. He didn’t complain. He didn’t cough. He didn’t make any noise to cause alarm to the nurse sitting only 10 feet away. When it was time for him to get ready for school his nurse tried to dress him, but he wasn’t breathing. The family never requested an autopsy, but they believe it was heart failure.

J had been at East for only two weeks, but he was glad to be there. He wanted to finish high school before he passed away.

“He wasn’t ready to die,” Crown said. “It was a school day.”

He was buried on his father’s birthday in Highland Cemetery. His family wanted J buried in a place that remembered the best times of his life at Highlands Elementary School. When he had good friends, unlike when they matured and drifted towards their own interests in middle school and high school.

He was buried in the perfect spot, next to the broken fence. Neighborhood kids run through the cemetery to go to the field nearby to play ball. They have to pass his grave to get there.

“J would have wanted it that way,” Crown said. “He would have played with them if he could.”

He was buried on a sunny day. The sky was clear and few clouds stood in the way. It was a little hot, but the mourners didn’t sweat. They were wearing Hawaiian shirts. Story by Tim Shedor.

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Photo courtesy of the Lopez family.

Nearly

every picture of senior Terra Lopez in the stack on the kitchen table is of her with an animal. Terra with the black-andwhite dog. Terra hugging her white horse. Terra petting a golden retriever.

“She wanted to be a vet,” John Lopez, her father, explained.

Sophomore Desirae Lopez’s photos show her strutting her stuff. Her signature long ponytail seems to twitch back and forth, even in the motionless image. Her face is tough, but the laughter is still in her eyes.

“They loved posing for that camera, but Desirae was a pro,” Theresa McGraw, her mother, said.

The pictures are reminders of Terra’s big, beautiful smile and Desirae’s neverending laugh after the sisters were killed in a one-car accident on Oct. 31. They are John and brother Johnny Lopez’s final glimpses of the girl that adored horses and the girl who loved to dance: the teenage girls who were always laughing, dedicated to their family but also to loving life.

Terra, 18, and Desirae, 16, were driving home from Wichita on I-35 when Terra swerved, probably to avoid a deer, according to her father. Her silver Chevrolet Camaro smashed a guardrail, skidded down an embankment and flipped. Terra and Desirae died on impact.

*** Desirae loved music and her feet always wanted to dance. She danced all night with her friends, wired on Rockstar energy drink. She danced in the car, singing nearly any song that came on the radio at the top of her lungs. She brought her stereo into the bathroom during her typical 45-minute baths.

“She was the best dancer,” North sophomore Courtney Kurtzman said. “She could always out-dance anybody.”

Terra wasn’t as focused on dancing and singing. Sure, her voice would join with Desirae’s as they coasted down Metcalf with Johnny, but her passion was horses. On her feet for close to six hours a day working as a waitress at the Village Inn restaurant in Mission, she lived for the moments when she would be galloping across a field atop Prince Albert.

“She had told me that’s how she relaxed,” Theresa said. “It was her pleasure time; it was how she relaxed from her busy time.”

Sometimes, she even went so far as to bring the horse home with her, John said. He’d come home, after telling her that she couldn’t keep a horse in the yard,

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in

Photos by Hannah Brewer.

Family and friends remember senior Terra Lopez and sophomore Desirae Lopez after their sudden deaths in a car accident on Oct. 31, 2007. only to find the five-foot tall animal trampling the grass.

The rest of her time was consumed with school and work. After spending eight hours at school, Terra would work from 4 p.m. to midnight at Village Inn to earn money for the family. Despite the monotony of her work, Terra earned respect from her patrons.

“Terra had a very good clientele at her job as a waitress,” John, who also worked at Village Inn, said. “She worked mostly nights; everyone wanted to sit in her section.”

From the other waitresses came the nickname “Half-pez.” It was a play off of her dad’s nickname, “Slow-pez.” Sometimes, joked Megan, another waitress, she was just as slow serving customers as her dad was.

Desirae – Desi to her friends and family – worked at Village Inn, too. She was a busser, but the regulars all still knew her as John Lopez’s daughter. There were talks of her moving up to cashier sometime soon.

Village Inn was also where Desirae met her two best friends, Courtney and South junior Reyna Hernandez. Not only were the three inseparable – they spent entire weekends together, going from Courtney’s house to work at Village Inn back to Desirae’s house – but the friendships allowed Desirae and Terra to be genuine. No masks, no pretexts.

“Whenever we would come in here [to Village Inn], outside work, they would always laugh at us, always asking if we were ever apart,” Courtney said. “We’d say nope, we’re always together.”

Terra would join the pack sometimes, becoming another “hermana,” or sister, but usually, she was working. She wouldn’t always be along when Desirae, Courtney and Reyna would troop over to the Merriam Cinemark, then grab a plate of cheese fries and a couple mocha coffee shakes at Steak and Shake.

“We’re never bored, never sad or mad,” Courtney said. “Just nonstop laughing.”

Every Wednesday, when Terra was off, they would cruise in Terra’s Camaro to the mall, going back to Village Inn for a quick Strawberry Fizz, then head on to one of their houses. Desirae usually snagged shotgun.

“So she could control the radio,” Reyna laughed.

***

Terra and Desirae grew up as part of an extraordinarily close family.

“After Johnny was born, I wanted him in when I was giving birth,” Theresa said.

“I wanted a bond between them and I think it took.”

Born in Alaska and living there until 1997, when John and Theresa divorced, the girls did everything with Johnny and freshman sister Marissa. They shared a room with Johnny until Marissa was born and Johnny got his own.

They had so much in common with their big brother. They liked the same movies, the same music. Terra loved video games as much as he did. All three of them liked scary movies; Marissa was the only one who didn’t.

“There were some things that we didn’t agree on, [though],” Johnny said. “I’d give them crap for it. With Terra and her country music, I’d be like, ‘Are you serious?’”

He’d pull into the driveway after work to be greeted by Terra’s pounding speakers. When confronted, she’d simply bob her head side-to-side and tell him, “That’s the way I like it.”

Other times, they would go for rides together, Johnny chauffeuring the three girls to China Star – Desirae’s favorite – or to work.

“It would get annoying, going down the road, three girls singing, people looking at you funny,” Johnny said. “Dad would turn the radio down, they’d sing for two more seconds then stop.”

The bond between Terra and Desirae had grown and strengthened with time.

After Marissa ran away on Sep. 2, the girls became even closer, according to John.

Desirae could rely on Terra for advice, for support, for friendship.

“Terra was her mom,” Courtney said. “She’d always be there for Desirae to talk to about boys, her problems, rides if she needed.”

*** Terra and Desirae were “the lights of Johnny and John’s lives,” according to Theresa. John would shower them with a dozen roses on their birthdays. Johnny would always be there to play a quick round of video games with Terra or go see a movie with Desirae. The girls’ laughter was ever-present in the family’s yellow ranch-style house.

“They actually were the nicest, sweetest, kindest kids you ever knew,” John said. “Hearts of gold.” Story by Libby Nachman.

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