It was May 23, 2002…just one day before her high school graduation when the lives of Sonya’s family and friends would never again be the same. While driving down a country back road, a road she’d travelled numerous times, her car left the road causing her to overcorrect and strike a tree. She usually buckled up, but on this particular day she didn’t because it was just supposed to be a short trip to the high school to retrieve a ring she had previously lost. The accident was followed by three unbearable days of praying, hoping, and wishing before Sonya left this earth on May 26, 2002. It seems like an extremely high price to pay for such a simple mistake that we all make in our everyday lives.

“So why Sonya?” She had everything any 17-year old could have ever wanted. She had an incredible family that loved her dearly and so many friends. She loved life, frogs, and basketball and in return was loved by all that she encountered, even it was just for a moment, she had that quality about her. Her life was just beginning. She was senior class president and was voted Mrs. New Washington and most athletic by her senior class members. She was named Clark County Player of the Year her junior and senior years, making her one of the best players in Clark County’s history. This athletic ability had earned her way to the University of Southern Indiana on a full ride basketball scholarship. We could go on but her lists of accomplishments are practically endless. Sonya was a role model who many looked up to. She was someone you could point to and say that’s how you should live life, yet she was only 17. She was always going, going, and going. There was never anytime in her life when she didn’t have a smile on her beautiful face with those big bright rolling blue eyes. She had the world right at her fingertips, so once again, “why Sonya?”

As evidenced by the hundreds of people who came to pay their respects the day of her wake, Sonya touched an incredible number of lives in the tragically short time she spent here on earth. We just wish that many others had the opportunity to have known Sonya. We miss her and love her more than words could ever convey. Although we do not know what path God has laid for us…we do know that he will make sure we meet again…in heaven!