HOBBS, N.M. (AP) — Laci Stone had a special request for her mother. The 18-year-old wanted to get tiny matching heart tattoos before leaving her Texas hometown and returning to New Mexico to finish out her freshman year at the University of the Southwest.
She begged her mother.
And now Chelsi Stone is glad she didn’t chicken out.
“I’m so forever grateful that God gave me the courage to go through with it and always have this memory with her,” Chelsi Stone wrote on her Facebook page.
She is among the parents, other family members and friends who have been left brokenhearted and devastated after a fiery crash killed Laci, five of her teammates and a coach while they were returning home from a golf tournament in Texas on Tuesday.
Most of the students were freshmen who were getting their first taste of life away from home at the private Christian university with enrollment numbering in the hundreds. Some of them were far from home, having come from Canada, Mexico and Portugal.
Chelsi Stone said she wouldn’t wish the pain she was feeling on her worst enemy. She described her daughter as a ray of sunshine and said her family will never be the same.
Stone graduated from Nocona High School in 2021, where she played golf, volleyball and softball. Her high school announced on social media that it would be canceling Wednesday’s softball game, saying the community was heartbroken over losing one of its own. Instead, dozens of people gathered on the field to pray.
The other victims included golf coach Tyler James of Hobbs; junior Karisa Raines of Fort Stockston, Texas; junior Jackson Zinn of Westminster, Colorado; freshmen Travis Garcia of Pleasanton, Texas; and fellow players Mauricio Sanchez of Mexico; and Tiago Sousa of Portugal.
The two injured students were identified by authorities as Dayton Price of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, and Hayden Underhill of Amherstview, Ontario, Canada.
Authorities identified the occupants of the pickup truck that collided with the team’s van as Heinrich Siemens, 38, of Seminole, Texas, and a 13-year-old boy who also was from Seminole. Police have yet to release his name.
Authorities said James was bringing the students back to New Mexico on Tuesday night when the crash happened. Those who knew him said it had been his goal to be a head coach, and he was excited to be there.
“That was his dream job, to be a head coach and he was living out his dream,” said Ryan Erwin, vice president for student engagement and athletics at East Texas Baptist University in Marshall.
James graduated from ETBU in May with a master’s of science in kinesiology. While there, he had been the graduate assistant coach for the golf program.
Erwin said James had not only a love for coaching, but for mentoring students as well.
After beginning his college career playing golf at Ottawa University in Kansas, he transferred to Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, according to his biography on the University of the Southwest website.
