Tragic Accident

Hey everyone. I dont know if you have heard but there was a tragic accident in my area which is really sad. Im just asking for everyone to pray for the families and friends of these 2 girls and for the girls that injured, moreless everyone on the bus. It hit way to close to home. One of the girls cousins is in one of my classes at school and i just cant imagine the pain that she is feeling right now.

DEVERS, Texas (AP) — Two members of a Texas high school girls soccer team have been killed in a bus accident on the way to a game.

The chartered bus rolled into a ditch when the driver swerved in the rain to avoid a load of plastic foam insulation that had fallen from a truck. The students from West Brook High School in Beaumont were on their way to Humble, Texas, near Houston. The driver, coach, chaperone and 20 other girls on the bus were injured. Eight of them are hospitalized. A paramedic, describing the scene as chaotic and overwhelming, says the injuries ranged from cuts and bruises to "very serious." Ashley Brown and Alicia Bonura were pronounced dead at the scene. Two other girls had to be pried from the wreckage.

BEAUMONT – Friends remembered the laughs. Teachers recalled bright smiles and two students who didn’t back down from challenges.Alicia Bonura and Ashley Brown died Wednesday when the West Brook girls soccer team’s charter bus wrecked on U.S. 90 en route to a playoff match.Students, faculty, staff and family reminisced about two girls who loved soccer, loved their school and, more importantly, loved everyone they came in touch with.For 14 years, senior Danielle Doland considered Bonura, a tall, brown-haired senior, one of her best friends. Bonura could light up a room with her smile, Doland said, and oh boy, when she giggled, everyone else couldn’t help but join in.
"She had the most wonderful laugh," Doland said. "She was definitely the most funny, the sweetest person that I know."Slumber parties as kids evolved into a band with friend Megan Mahana. Bonura was on drums, sometimes lending her not-so-perfectly pitched voice to vocals. Always a trio, they went everywhere. Doland saw how Bonura affected passersby in the high school hallways.Bonura, in the Top 10 of her class, would lend her hand to anyone, National Honor Society sponsor Jean Bryant said. Only moments before leaving for the soccer match, Bryant said Bonura asked how she could help with a project.

Cookies needed to be baked, Bryant said.

"OK, I’ll bake cookies," Bonura told Bryant.

Doland said Bonura would play the game "light as a feather, stiff as a board," with her.

"She’d always be scared to go up," Doland said. "(But) whenever you needed help, she was always there for you."

Like Bonura, students gravitated to Brown, social studies teacher Ken Poston said. Freckle-faced with flowing red hair, Brown made Poston’s fourth-period class roll with laughter at times. One male student who sat in front of Brown sometimes allowed his "free-spirited" personality to stop class. Brown knew just the trick, Poston said.

"Ashley was always one to say, ‘Oh, hold it down. Let’s get back to work,’" Poston said. "She would do it in way to make him laugh and the rest of us laugh."

On a night of tears, everyone discussing Brown and Bonura only remembered the laughter.Bonura’s lively page on myspace.com, an online friend networking community, lists the things she liked in life.

Her favorite sport?

"I love soccer," she wrote in girlish prose.

And music?

"Music is sooo incredibly awesome! it makes me so happy and i cant help but sing when I hear it even though I cant sing at all."

And life and God?

"I love to smile and love life in general and I love God, hes such a fantastic guy!"

Then, hauntingly, she wrote:

"I cant wait to meet God …"

All of this really struck close to home. I didnt know either one of these girls, but they seemed very loving, happy and in a love with GOD, which is beautiful. Just please keep everyone in your prayers, at this point, the students, parents, friends, faculty are all at one of the bottom lows. Prayer is the only thing that can be done at this point…they were so young and full of life. I hate that stuff like this happens…

-Courtney