I heard about this terrible event over the weekend but didn't have the details until today... please keep their family in your prayers
Two students died in car accident on Friday
Siblings killed by impact with a truck on Highway 231
By Charity Scott
Assistant Student Life Editor
February 19, 2007
If the quality of a person's life is measured not by it's length, but the number of lives it touches, Matt and Lauren Harris lived lives of immeasurable quality.
Matt loved playing golf whenever he had the chance, Lauren loved to surround herself with people, and they both had lots of friends and relationships they held dear to them a friend of the family said.
"If you could've just been at the visitation, you would've seen the huge outpouring of love from so many young people that knew them, and don't know what to do now that they're gone," she said.
Matt and his sister Lauren were killed in a car accident Friday night after their car was hit by what is believed to be a dump truck while pulling onto Highway 231 from a truck stop, WSFA TV in Montgomery reported.
Matt, who was a senior majoring in financial planning, was pronounced dead when the ambulance arrived at Merle's Truck Stop, while Lauren, a freshman majoring in communicative diseases, was transported to Montgomery's Baptist Medical Center South were she was pronounced dead, WSFA reported.
Matt, 23, and Lauren, 19, were from Dothan where they attended Northview High School. Their joint funeral will be held today at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Dothan WSFA reported.
Their parents, Terry and Vicky Harris, were so emotionally drained from the visitation, which was scheduled to run from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, but didn't end until after 9, that they were unable to comment about the loss of their only children.
The family friend that answered the phone for the Harris' did not want to give her name out of respect for the family.
"You can't put in a nice compact sentence what they meant to people," she said. "They are going to be missed by a lot of people."
Lauren was a new member of Kappa Delta sorority, UA spokeswoman Cathy Andreen said.
Caroline Simpson, the president of Kappa Delta and a junior majoring in interior design, said Lauren was a caring, nurturing friend.
"If anyone was having a bad day, she'd make you smile," Simpson said.
Last week Lauren was having a conversation with Mary Katherine Bentley, also a member of Kappa Delta, when she said, 'Right now my life is wonderful and my friends are great, and I'm just so happy,' Simpson said.
"She died at one of the happiest times in her life," she said.
The Harris' family friend said that Lauren and Matt were the joys of their parents' lives.
"They were two wonderful children whose lives were tragically cut short," she said. "It's hard to believe they're gone."
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