Jerome and Jean Niemeyer

Columbus Grove, Ohio

(ENLARGE)

Jerome and Jean Niemeyer

(ENLARGE)

Tyler Williams

(ENLARGE)

Cody Holp

(ENLARGE)

David Betts

(ENLARGE)

Scott Harmon

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Ordinarily, Jean Niemeyer, 61, stayed home when her bus driver husband took out-of-state trips to ferry Bluffton University athletes to their away games.

But after 23 years, she had recently stopped working at a fast food restaurant. And the weather in Columbus Grove, Ohio, where she lived, was bitterly cold this time of the year.

So she jumped at the chance to accompany Jerome Niemeyer, 65, to sunny Florida as part of the Mennonite university's annual spring training trip.

"Who would pass that up?" said her neighbor Patty Amstutz. "She couldn't wait to get there."

The couple lived in a ranch-style home in rural Columbus Grove, sharing their small road with four other houses. They had three grown children who lived elsewhere in Ohio. Less than a year ago, they became grandparents.

Jerome Niemeyer worked at a Phillips plant, but retired when it closed in 2006.

He then took to driving. He was a substitute driver for Columbus Grove schools. It wasn't immediately known how long Neimeyer had been with the bus company, Executive Coach Luxury Travel in Ottawa. Calls to their offices were not returned, but the university said it had used Niemeyer before.

After she quit her job at a nearby McDonald's, Jean Niemeyer helped look after an elderly neighbor, a woman in her 90s.

"She told me she was really looking forward to this trip," Amstutz said. "The last thing I remembered telling her was 'Go have a good time.'"

Tyler Williams

Sophomore from Lima, Ohio

Before his high school baseball team took the field, Tyler Williams, 19, would crack up his nervous teammates at Lima Senior High by launching into impromptu raps about them and the game.

That's how his friends and acquaintances remembered Williams — an outgoing kid who was funny, outgoing and a little hyper.

"He'd do just about anything to make you laugh," said Eric Rose, who grew up with Williams in Lima and now attends Wilmington College. "I don't think I ever remember seeing him get down about anything."

At Bluffton University, where Williams enrolled because his cousin was an alumnus, the sophomore was an outfielder.

But at Lima High, Williams' coach played him at second base, third base, as an outfielder and a pitcher — and he never complained.

"He wasn't one of those people who'd sit there and pout about it if we lost a game," Rose said. "He'd expect to go out and win the next day. "

Williams earned three varsity letters before graduating in 2005.

Former Lima Senior baseball coach Jeff McClellan remembered William's junior year, when the team went to Cocoa Beach, Fla., for a baseball spring trip.

"He'd never seen the ocean before, and when we got there he ran in with his clothes on," McClellan told the Lima News. "Then we went back to the ocean later that week, and we kept telling him to take his glasses off, but he left them on and lost his glasses in the ocean."

Cody Holp

Freshman from Arcanum, Ohio

On his MySpace page, Holp, 19, of Arcanum, Ohio, portrayed himself as "an athletic some a gun" who was "up for doing anything as long as it's crazy enough for me."

But the music the 19-year-old picked as backdrop for his site's boasts of machismo was Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon."

Those were the two sides to Holp — a tough exterior that he projected to help with his athletic single-mindedness, and a sentimental interior.

He proudly said he never read a book in his life. Then added he was a "poetry man."

At Lewisburg Tri-County North High School, he played soccer and for the football team. For his part-time job, he helped care for a quadriplegic.

Ben Sink, 20, had known Holp since the 4th grade. There was never a dull moment around him, Sink said.

"He was the class clown. Very outgoing, very energetic. Always a good time," he said.

Sink once took Holp to a fishing resort; Holp, in turn, had him tag along to a family reunion in Kentucky. That's when Sink realized Holp came from a whole clan of class clowns: "They were way more fun [than my family]. Loud too."

When he finished high school, Holp wasn't yet sure what he wanted to do with his life. But he knew what he loved.

Holp's passions, that Sink listed in order, were: Baseball, soccer, basketball. Sink didn't know what followed next, but suspected it was another sport.

Friday — the day Holp died — was the 10th anniversary of his grandmother's passing.

David Betts

Sophomore from Bryan, Ohio

Betts, 20, had big shoes to fill when he arrived at Bluffton. His great-grandfather was a former president. His sister, Sarah, still holds every major pitching record for the school's softball team.

The two grew up competing against each other, often coming home bruised and bloodied after playing outdoors, his father said.

He was part of a family enthusiastically involved in both the church and athletics, said the Rev. Ronald Guengerich of Zion Mennonite in Archbold.

Betts' two older sisters graduated from Bluffton, as did his parents. He had a younger brother.

His mother is a cook in the Bryan City schools district, and one of his sisters is a substitute teacher there,

At Bryan High School, Betts pushed himself to excel in academics, sports and music. He played the trombone and was also on the cross-country and basketball teams.

Ronald Guengerich, senior pastor at Zion Mennonite Church in Archbold, told The Associated Press that Betts' mother, Joy, grew up in Japan as the daughter of missionaries. David Betts embraced her international flair.

"His was the only senior graduation party I ever went to that served sushi," Guengerich said.

At Bluffton, Betts didn't see much time as a freshman on the team, but was expecting to play a lot as a sophomore. He'd been eager to make his first trip to Florida with the Beavers.

"It will be a good trip where we can play together as a team and test ourselves against the other competition," he told the school paper, the Witmarsum.

Scott Harmon

Freshman from Lima, Ohio

People are still talking about Harmon's performance at his high school's Division II district semi-final baseball game last year.

Harmon, 19, left the game in the first inning after a shoulder-to-nose collision at third base that left his nose broken. But he returned — and, despite being bloody and lightheaded, hit a three-run homer to help his team, Elida High School, beat Wapakoneta 6-5.

"There are kids who'd have a problem with being elbowed, but not Scott," said assistant baseball coach Randy Apple. "He took it as just part of the game. He'd just go on and play with no hard feelings."

Harmon, of Lima, Ohio, graduated last year from Elida, where he was a member of the National Honor Society and played both football and baseball.

He wanted to be a math teacher. As part of a college immersion program to help students in their career path, Harmon returned to Elida twice a week to shadow Apple — who also teaches math. He helped grade papers and tutor kids, and became more convinced than ever he wanted to teach, Apple said.

Hannah Noel Endres, a student at Elida, said she last saw Scott on Thursday in the school hallway. She was on her way to class, so she couldn't stop and chat.

"Every time I was with him, I couldn't wipe the smile off my face," she said. "My last impression of Scott was his unforgettable smile and laugh and I will never forget that."

— Staff writers Kevin Duffy, Michelle Hiskey, Andrea Jones and staff researcher Richard Hallman contributed to this report.