Classmates grieve with counselors, write online messages to two killed

10:58 PM CST on Thursday, March 30, 2006

Associated Press

HOUSTON – About a half-hour after the bus crashed, Alicia Bonura's personal Web page got its first message: "Are you OK, Alicia?!?!"

Seventy-seven minutes later, a second message appeared: "You are in my prayers."

The mourning continued Thursday on Myspace.com and at Beaumont West Brook High School, where classmates wept with counselors after Wednesday's crash that killed Bonura, 18, and Ashley Brown, 16. The two were riding with their soccer team to a playoff game when their bus flipped onto its side and skidded into a muddy ditch.

Students at the victims' school sometimes left in the middle of class to find one of 16 crisis counselors on campus, district spokeswoman Jolene Ortego said. One class wrote notes to Bonura and Brown on small pieces of paper before folding them into origami cranes, which they planned to string together at a vigil for the girls.

Ortego said two of the students in the crash briefly came to campus Thursday but did not attend classes.

No charges have been filed.

Five students who were on the charter bus remained at a Beaumont hospital, many with injuries to their arms. Devin Martindale was in critical condition, two students were in good condition and two were in fair condition, Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital spokeswoman Jill Fontenot said.

Twenty-five people were on the bus, including the driver, a coach and a chaperone. The more seriously injured were sent to Beaumont while 12 others, mostly with bruises and sprains, were released Wednesday night from a hospital in nearby Liberty.

Investigators continued reconstructing the scene Thursday on the rural two-lane stretch of Highway 90, about 60 miles northeast of Houston. Police say the bus driver had swerved on the wet road to avoid plastic insulation that had fallen off a flatbed hauled by a pickup truck.

It would likely be a few days before authorities decide whether to file any charges, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Richard Vasser said. He said investigators have not completed interviews with passengers aboard the bus that was headed toward Humble, about 70 miles from the high school.

"(We're) probably going to wait a day or two for them to settle down so they can get over the trauma," Vasser said.

DPS identified the bus driver as Lorri Ann White, 41, of Silsbee. The driver of the pickup was Joel Eugenio Martinez, 23, of Houston.

The charter bus company, Beaumont-based Sun Travel Limousine, had a below-average driver safety performance, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Sun Travel had an overall carrier safety rating of "satisfactory" as of Feb. 28, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. But the agency also reported that 68 percent of other carriers had a better driver safety performance than Sun Travel. The national average is 25.

Records showed Sun Travel had one crash, resulting in an injured passenger, in the two years before Wednesday.

A woman who answered the phone at Sun Travel on Thursday said she had no information. She took a message that was not immediately returned to The Associated Press.

Beaumont ISD Superintendent Carrol Thomas said the school district had used Sun Travel "for years" without any problems.

Meanwhile Thursday, athletic director Rodney Saveat said the team wouldn't compete in the University Interscholastic League playoffs. He said the decision was simple.

"The kids are more important than anything else," Saveat said in a story in Thursday's online edition of the Beaumont Enterprise. "That's the only thing that mattered."

On Bonura's Web page, dozens of friends posted pictures and tributes that ranged from succinct goodbyes to song lyrics to anecdotes about eating coolers of ice and playing drums. One person identified as Alex wrote, "Without you today in first period.. it was unbearable... 4 adults came in there to comfort us.. but it wasn't enough.."

In her own section of the Web page, Bonura had written about how she loved to look at Christmas lights and snowboard in Colorado. She liked the band Jimmy Eat World and wrote that she was going to Texas A&M University next year to study engineering.

In the next sentence, she typed who she'd like to meet the most in life.

"I can't wait to meet God."