A look at some of the victims of Thursday’s collision between a tractor-trailer and a bus carrying high school students to visit California’s Humboldt State University. Five students and three chaperones were killed, as well as both drivers.
Michael Myvett
Myvett was playing chaperone as he traveled from his Southern California home to Humboldt State, his alma mater. He was also a proud groom-to-be, traveling with his fiancee Mattison Haywood, who likewise died in the wreck. Kyle Farris, operations manager at the Center for Autism and Related Disorders in Torrance, Calif., where Myvett worked as a therapist, described him as “a child at heart” who loved comic books and video games, fantasized about working as a Disney cartoonist and bonded with his young clients by drawing cartoon characters for them. Myvett proposed to Haywood in December during a trip to Paris.
Marisa Serrato
Separated by five minutes at birth, 17-year-old identical twins Marisol and Marisa Serrato of Norte Vista High School in Riverside, Calif., found opposite fates as they got on different buses headed for Humboldt. Marisol, who’d been accepted to the school, arrived without incident. Marisa, her “baby” sister who was on the school’s wait list, has been confirmed among the dead. Their brother, Miguel Serrato, said Marisol “is devastated.”
Arthur Arzola
Arzola was a Humboldt admissions counselor helping chaperone the trip. A university statement praised Arzola for his passionate commitment to helping low-income and first-generation students get into college. The University of LaVerne in Southern California said Arzola was a graduate student in educational counseling who had recently married a LaVerne alumna and was set to receive his degree in May.
Adrian Castro
A senior football player at El Monte High School east of Los Angeles, Adrian Castro was considering going to a California state university nearer to home but decided to give faraway Humboldt a visit. “Adrian Castro will be missed as a student and football player,” El Monte football coach Joel Sanchez told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. “He was a good young man with a bright future. He will always be remembered by the El Monte family.”
Jennifer Bonilla
Bonilla was the model student. “She’s one of those students who is bright and shiny and eager and ready to go,” Sherlett Hendy Newbill, a teacher at Dorsey High School, told the Los Angeles Times. Teacher Noah Lippe-Klein told the Times he recently wrote a letter of recommendation for a scholarship that Bonilla won. He said he admired her “ability to think critically about the world and her profound, college-level writing skills.”
Denise Gomez
Gomez, who played soccer at Animo Inglewood Charter High School, was a “great kid, sharp, energetic,” Gomez’s former soccer coach, Roger Flores, told KCAL-TV. “Always smiling and a little quiet, but she was a happy child. I just know she was looking forward to go out and do her college trips.”
Ismael Jimenez
Jiminez, a classmate of Gomez’s, was an 18-year-old honor student who was “beyond excited” about attending college and pursuing an art career, according to his sister. “His love for art was amazing. That’s all he did,” Evelin Jimenez, told The Los Angeles Times.
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