Kennedy Bowles was remembered this week by her friends and family as "beautiful inside and out," outgoing, bubbly and smart.
The 18-year-old Lincoln Southeast High School student died Wednesday, four days after she was injured in a crash southwest of Lincoln.
"She was a good girl," said her aunt, Christian Zoucha. "She definitely did not deserve what she got."
Bowles was riding in a southbound Chrysler 200 driven by Dheyab Kortan just after 11 p.m. April 10 when Kortan ran a stop sign on Southwest 14th Street and crashed into an eastbound Chevy Silverado pickup, driven by Therese Horner, on Nebraska 33.
Both vehicles left the road and ended up in the ditch. No one had been cited as of Friday morning, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said, and the crash remains under investigation.
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The crash sent all four people in the Chrysler to the hospital, two in critical condition. Bowles was taken off life support Wednesday.
Wagner said investigators were waiting for toxicology reports on the drivers, which is customary in fatality crashes.
Bowles was a model who took a lot of photos of herself and her friends. Zoucha recalled family members asking Bowles for makeup advice, and she loved fashion. She was on the honor roll at Southeast.
For the holidays, Bowles created canvas paintings of different family members that included personalized details.Â
"She just was really talented," Zoucha said. "She would give them to us and say, 'I know it's terrible.' And we'd say 'Kennedy, don't say that. This is amazing.' She didn't believe in the gift that she had."
Friend Isabella Fauver said Bowles was the most beautiful girl she had ever met. She and Bowles participated in cheerleading together, and they would always have fun when they were together.Â
"She was the light of my life," Fauver said. "It's gonna be really hard to find something that brings that happiness to me again."
Family and friends gathered at Holmes Lake on Thursday night for a candlelight vigil. There, Fauver recalled late-night trips to Hy-Vee or McDonald's to buy food and the dance parties they would have during sleepovers. She remembered the time they dyed Bowles' dog's hair pink, which made Bowles laugh. She had a contagious laugh.Â
Zoucha said friends recalled Bowles' love for ketchup and pickles. In fact, Zoucha almost gifted Bowles a jar of pickles for Christmas one year.
Fauver and Bowles' other friends will wear white to her funeral because Bowles was a positive person, and they want the service to reflect that.Â
"We don't want to think about the tragic way that she was taken from us," she said. "We'd rather remember all the good memories."
The family's saving grace during this process is knowing parts of Bowles will live on through organ donation, Zoucha said. Bowles' organs saved eight lives.
"Kennedy is going to leave a big void in our lives. It's affected each of us," Zoucha said. "The organ donation has been a bright light in all of this, the only good that comes out of it. There's a comfort knowing her heart is still beating somewhere and her lungs are still breathing."
A in Bowles' name has raised more than $22,000 as of Friday.