A young couple with plans to be married died Sunday evening in a car crash east of Elmwood, according to the Cass County Sheriff’s Office.
Emily F. Widger, 22 of Lincoln, and Matthew F. Kirchhoff, 24 of Weeping Water, were headed west on U.S. 34 half a mile east of Elmwood about 7:30 when they were hit from behind, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Edward D. Koch, 25, of Quincy, Illinois, was driving the 2006 Mazda four-door that hit Kirchhoff’s 2006 Nissan Sentra, according to the release.
Kirchhoff and Widger died at the scene. An Elmwood Rescue crew took Koch to Bryan West Campus in Lincoln, where he was in fair condition Monday afternoon, hospital staff said.
Authorities think Koch was speeding and had been drinking and will continue to investigate, Lt. Larry Burke said.
People are also reading…
Kirchhoff and Widger were wearing seat belts, according to the release.
Widger graduated in 2010 from Wahoo High School, where she sang in the school choir and ran cross country, said vocal music teacher Julie Baker-Anderson.
“The arts were really, really her thing,†Baker-Anderson said.
Unlike other students, Widger would take her sheet music home, treat it like homework and mark it up before coming back to class.
“It’s where she was most happy,†Baker-Anderson said.
Widger enrolled at Doane College in fall 2010, said Doane spokesman Mike Lefler. In fall 2012, she started classes at the University of Nebraska at Kearney and went there for a year.
At UNK, she was involved in activities including being on the executive board of the university’s Residence Hall Association, UNK spokesman Todd Gottula said. Counseling was available to UNK students on Monday to deal with their former classmate’s death.
“Our students are definitely taking it pretty hard,†he said.
Kirchhoff had two days left at Southeast Community College in Milford, where he was studying precision machining and automation, his cousin Lizabeth Green said. He had served in Afghanistan for a year.
Widger and Kirchhoff had created a wedding registry together, listing Oct. 17, 2015, as their wedding date.