The tight-knit town of Westcliffe is reeling after a Custer County High School student died over the weekend after she was run over by an 18-wheel truck towing a float in the homecoming parade.
Today’s classes were canceled, and school officials planned to have grief counselors and ministers on hand for faculty and students, secondary principal Barb Jones said.
The county coroner identified the 15-year-old sophomore as Courtney Curtis and said the girl died from injuries suffered in the accident.
“The trauma is overwhelming at this point,” Jones said. “We had been having such a good homecoming week. The night before we had a large community dinner in the parking lot of the school and everyone wore the school colors, blue and gold … a bonfire on Friday night that everyone attended.
“In this town, homecoming really belongs to the whole community,” she said.
Many of Courtney’s classmates saw the girl slip while trying to climb onto the float and get crushed by the slow-moving semi.
The 185-student school is K-through-12, and most of Courtney’s classmates have known each other for years. Courtney, described by people who knew her as a “quiet, unassuming girl,” had been attending school there since around the seventh grade, Jones said.
Courtney’s mother is a cook at the school’s cafeteria, and Courtney has three younger siblings attending middle, elementary and preschool there, Jones said. Her grandparents are involved in the community, helping with the county’s rodeo, officials said.
“She wasn’t what you’d call a joiner, didn’t play on any of the athletic teams or that sort of thing, but she was a very, very involved student and was well-liked by everyone,” Jones said.
Saturday’s parade was one of the highlights on the community calendar, involving class floats that had been put together in the week leading up to the homecoming football game. About 400 people turned out to watch the parade and expected to stay and watch the football team play Crowley County High School.
The float that Courtney was riding on had just traveled the length of the parade – a few blocks down the town’s Main Street – and was turning around to be parked along with other floats next to the football field before the game, coroner Arthur Nordyke said.
Courtney and several others had gotten off the float and rushed to climb back when the accident occurred. The driver of the semi, 40-year-old Gilbert Parsons, immediately noticed the girl had been run over and brought the vehicle to a halt.
“The truck was going real slow, and as soon as he felt it and saw what had happened, he stopped, but it was too late,” Nordyke said. “The driver of the truck was taking it really hard, but really there wasn’t anything he could do to prevent this.”
Saturday’s homecoming football game was postponed to this afternoon. The game’s halftime was planned to be dedicated to a well-known Westcliffe resident who died at the beginning of the school year in a car crash.
Manny Gonzales: 303-954-1537 or mgonzales@denverpost.com
