|
|
|
Copyrighted 2010
Updated
on:
09/05/2011 11:29:54 PM
|
|
Crash victim remembered
as talented, athleticy The LincoLincollnLincoln
Journal Star
Family and friends mourned the
loss of a talented and athletic 17-year-old girl and Northeast High School
senior who died Tuesday when she lost control of her car about 2 miles south of
Eagle.
Members of the Lincoln
Public Schools crisis team came to Northeast Wednesday to talk with teachers and
students who knew Lacy M. Pittman of rural Eagle.
Pittman transferred to Northeast this fall from Southeast, said Northeast
Principal Kurt Glathar.
She’d been a sophomore at Northeast and returned to be near her friends there,
he said.
Teachers told students what happened and school officials will send a letter
home to parents. Teachers, as well as students, grieve when a student dies,
Glathar said.
“It’s very important that we take care of each other when stuff like this
happens,’’ he said.
Kent Marschman, a soccer coach at Northeast High School, coached Pittman during
her freshman and sophomore years. He described her as an aggressive athlete who
was petit but who wouldn’t shy away from playing defense against bigger forward
players.
After overcoming a broken back when she was 14, soccer was the first sport she
was allowed to participate in, he said. For the past three years, she also
coached her younger brothers’ soccer teams.
“She loved the game, and she figured that was a way should could give back,” he
said.
Sarah Styskal of Lincoln became friends with Pittman four years ago when the two
ended up on the same soccer team together. Styskal remembered Pittman as someone
who always smiled and who hated to see another person feeling down.
“She liked to hang out with her friends. She wasn’t a girly girl or a big
shopper. She just loved to relax and be herself,” Styskal said.
Marion Sceals of Lincoln described her granddaughter as beautiful and
multitalented with interests in poetry and other arts.
She was considering going to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to study
photography or psychology. Recently, she started a job at the Fairfield Inn,
27th and Superior streets, working at the front desk.
Pittman was headed home to gather her soccer equipment to coach her little
brother’s game when the accident occurred.
“She was a typical teenager.
Sometimes she thought she knew it all, but she listened to you. She was the love
of our life,” Sceals said. “Any grandparent would love a grandchild, but she was
our special one.”
Pittman was southbound on Nebraska 43 shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday when she
drove off the road onto the shoulder and overcorrected, losing control of her
car, the Otoe County Sheriff’s Office said.
The car slid sideways across the highway and into the path of a 1997 Ford F150
pickup driven by Starseed Milburn, 25, of Lincoln.
Authorities do not suspect that alcohol, drugs or excessive speed played a part
in the accident.
Pittman was not wearing a seatbelt, the sheriff’s office said. She was
pronounced dead at the scene.
Milburn and his passenger, Tyler Lawrence, 20, Lincoln,were treated for their
injuries at BryanLGH Medical Center West and released, according to a hospital
spokesman.
Both men were wearing seatbelts, the sheriff’s office said.
