JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — A Jamestown High School tenth grader is being remembered as a kind and caring person after she died when a tractor-trailer hit her on Friday.
Alexis Hughan, 15, lost her life Friday as she was crossing the street in Jamestown. The driver of the tractor-trailer that hit her is charged with driving while ability impaired by drugs and leaving the scene.
Hughan's classmates are now left grieving for their friend.
"What her closest friends have been doing in the last day or so since we returned to school is, again, just coming up with ways to constructively remember Lexi," Jamestown High School Principal Dana Williams said.
The principal of Jamestown High School, Dana Williams, says friends have already come up with plans to create special artwork to honor Hughan at the high school. Williams says Hughan loved art, and it's their way of keeping her memory alive.
"The biggest memory that I've heard them talking about with her is just how she was always thinking of other people. Just wanted to help others. Help her friends. Anything her friends were going through that there was not enough that she could do, and she'd always just be there for them and whatever they would need at that time, they would be able to count on her," Williams said.
Hughan's friends are selling flowers to raise money to start a scholarship in her name. Williams says Jamestown City Hall is also being lit up in her favorite color, green.
"This type of thing really shows the true character of so many of our students, so many of our young people that they have such a desire to do good things, do the right things, to really band together during difficult times," says Williams.
To also help the community heal, Hughan's parents are planning celebration of life.
"Which will be on Saturday after the service at 1 p.m. It's at the Spire Theater on Third Street (in Jamestown), and Lexi's mom wanted us to let everyone know that they're welcome to attend and celebrate Lexi's life, so, again, they're just trying to do a lot of things just like we are as a school to try to remember her," Williams said.
The Gofundme page for the family already surpassed its original goal. The new goal is $45,000.