Life of student killed in crash remembered

By Justin Leverett

Monday, September 21, 2009

Kara Morgan’s passion in life was dancing.

“From the time she was little, she’d take her little blanket with her and she’d just dance around and put it over her head like it was a princess dress and dance and dance,” Connie Morgan, her mother, said.

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Contributed photo

When Kara Morgan was buried last Wednesday, she was buried with a little piece of that childhood blanket.

Morgan, Holton junior, died on Sept. 12 at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan. Initial police reports stated she was driving the wrong direction in the westbound lane of K-10 at around 3 a.m. when her car collided with another car, but accident reconstruction specialists from the Kansas Highway Patrol later determined that Morgan was driving west in the westbound lane at the time of the accident, Connie Morgan said, and the other driver was driving east. She and the driver of the other car, 20-year-old Eric Sill of Olathe, were both killed. Both were wearing seatbelts.

Morgan’s funeral was held Wednesday at Mercer Funeral Home in Holton.

Morgan was energetic, charismatic and the life of every party, according to her friends.

“You could tell if she liked you because she was always bouncing up and down in your face and just excited about every story,” her best friend, Hannah Blodgett, said. “She told jokes and she had the most beautiful laugh.”

Morgan was part of the dance team at Jackson Heights High School in Holton until her graduation in 2001. She then moved to Lawrence, where she studied at the University and worked at the Yacht Club. Katie Kirsch, her manager there, said that Morgan’s energy was infectious.

“She’d walk into a room and make everyone smile, even if they were having the worst day possible,” she said

In 2004, Morgan dropped her classes and moved to Hawaii, where she waited tables at a five-star restaurant for two years. During her stay, Morgan would send gifts from Hawaii to her nephew, Cooper, said her sister, Jennifer Whitaker, of Tacoma, Wash.

“He would always look for a package from Auntie,” she said. “Then she came back to Lawrence and was a poor college kid like everyone else and Cooper would say, ‘Where’s my Auntie-package?’”

After returning to Lawrence, Morgan started a new major in sports management. She told her mother two weeks before her death that her goal was to get an internship with the Seattle Seahawks.

“Of anybody that could’ve done it, I think Kara probably could’ve done it, because once Kara set her mind on doing something, it got done,” her mother said.

Blodgett remembered traveling to Las Vegas with Morgan to celebrate Blodgett’s 21st birthday. The girls had booked a room on the 10th floor of the Paris Las Vegas hotel, but Blodgett said Morgan charmed the workers at the front desk into giving the girls a free upgrade to a better room on the 27th floor.

Blodgett said Morgan would want her friends and family to be happy, even after her death.

“I’ve been telling them that she’s dancing, wherever she’s at now,” Blodgett said.

— — Edited by Brenna M. T. Daldorph

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Comments

handy (anonymous) says...

So sad... my thoughts go out to friends and family. She sounded great, it's a shame we have to lose such good jayhawks.

September 21, 2009 at 8:35 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

DenverDad (anonymous) says...

Just wondering, was alcohol involved? Hope not, but if it was, why not reported? Might hurt the sales at the football games?

My heart and prayers go out to the family. A loss, no matter what the reason.

September 21, 2009 at 9:29 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

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