GRANITE FALLS — There were plenty of memories for Shaylynn Wietersen’s friends to share while they waited for the second layer of pink paint to dry on their school’s spirit rock.
They remembered the Granite Falls sophomore’s bubbly personality. How she loved music and got upset when the batteries in her camera died and she couldn’t take another picture. They talked about how she loved macaroni and cheese, flamingos and Batman.
“She was the kind of person that if you walked into a room and you were having the worst day of your life just looking at her would make you smile,” said Aliegh Walker, 16.
Shaylynn, 16, was on her way to school in a Jeep Cherokee with her brother, Brian, about 7 a.m. Dec. 8, 2009. The car collided with a Toyota 4Runner that was trying to pass them on Burn Road northwest of Granite Falls. Shaylynn was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle but died later that day from injuries she suffered in the crash.
The group of friends started painting the school’s spirit rock as a tribute to Shaylynn shortly after school ended on Tuesday. They painted a portion of the rock in pink, Shaylynn’s favorite color. Then they started drawing each letter of her name. The plan was to paint her name in green, another one of her favorite colors, said Desi Gerber, 17.
Gerber wore paint-splattered jeans and a T-shirt from an Avenged Sevenfold rock concert she attended with Shaylynn in February 2009. They were neighbors and friends for four years, she said, and shared a similar taste in music.
“She was wild, crazy, funny,” Gerber said. “She was very respectful, too.”
Walker said she met Shaylynn when they were both in middle school. The two met in a hallway after Shaylynn stopped her and said, “Hey you, I don’t know you.”
“I’ll wear her favorite shirt of mine tomorrow,” Walker said. “It’s a white shirt with clouds and robots.”
Courtney Cook, 16, said she and Shaylynn had matching Spider-Man T-shirts and even dressed up like the superhero despite the way she said Shaylynn felt about real spiders.
“We were driving one time and there was a spider. She put the car in park and we were throwing shoes at it,” Cook said.
This isn’t the first time Shaylynn’s friends have painted the rock together in her memory, Gerber said. They also painted the rock pink and green on her birthday, Oct. 21. At the time, they painted her name along with a Batman symbol. This time, Gerber said they planned to again paint her name, her birthdate and the date she died. Walker worked on adding a caricature of her friend.
Their friend would have enjoyed painting the rock with them if she could, Gerber said.
“She would have loved this,” she said.
Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
