Community Corner
One Year Later, Friends Remember Halee and Jenni
Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the car accident that killed Nicolet students Halee Ludowise-Fischer and Jennifer Geren. Friends and family gathered at the crash site for a vigil to remember the girls and their always positive attitudes.
They were always there for their friends. And now the friends of Halee Ludowise-Fischer and Jennifer Geren are making sure they are always there in return.
Students told stories and lit candles in support of Halee and Jenni who were killed when 15-year-old Halee, who had only her learners permit, lost control of her mother's 2009 Mitsubishi and hit a stop sign and then a utility pole after attempting to flee a River Hills police officer who was going to pull them over for not displaying a taillight around 1 a.m. Nov. 19, 2011. The car finally came to rest at West Good Hope Road and North Seneca Avenue in Glendale. Police say the girls died instantly.
“I miss them so much. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about (them),” Emily Robinette said. “I’ll love them forever…they’re two of the people who don’t deserve this at all."
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All throughout the vigil, the same message was repeated over and over - both Halee and Jenni were incredibly positive girls and always willing to make new friends.
“(They) were so positive about every situation. I was never around them when they were angry or upset. They always wanted to go have fun,” Nathan Florsheim, a University School of Milwaukee senior said.
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Florsheim thanked the girls for helping him when he moved schools and for always being there for him and his friends.
“When I first starting going to University School, I didn’t really have many close friends there, and probably the most powerful thing about my friendship with them was just that they were always there,” Florsheim said.
Since the accident, friends and family have found different ways to cope with the loss of Halee and Jenni.
“We go to BW3’s (Buffalo Wild Wings) because Halee loved to eat there,” Rebecca Garrison, a 2012 graduate of Nicolet.
Florsheim and his friends went to both memorial services for the girls and visited the crash site a few times.
It has not been easy trying to get through the loss Florsheim said, but “it’s better to get through it together with people who are close and people that were close with them.”
“It’s an everyday thing, they are always on our minds,” Garrison said.
And although Florsheim said he's told them many times, he had just one more message for the girls:
“Thank you for always being there,” he said.
