A close relative of one of the three teens killed in a car crash July 2 said Tuesday that she’s confident alcohol played no role in the tragic accident.

"There was no alcohol involved," said Ginger Jolley, aunt of 16-year-old Adam W. Jolley of Athens. "It was probably just a boy going a little too fast."

Adam Jolley was killed July 2 along with 17-year-old Adam D. Fitzgerald of Pomeroy and 17-year-old Christopher N. Coe of Albany, when the car they were in veered off Factory Road near Albany and hit a tree.

Ginger Jolley said to her knowledge, the three friends had been fishing at Lake Snowden in Albany, then had been en route to another fishing spot on Factory Road, when the fatal accident occurred. She said a second group of young men had been following her nephew and his two companions in another car when the first car crashed.

She recalled Adam Jolley and the other two teens as "good, good boys" who died too soon. "I wish you could have met Adam, my nephew, because his smile could light up a room," she said.

She recalled that the day of the accident, Adam had gone to pick up his friends for a day of fishing.

"My nephew was working at the pro shop at the Athens Country Club and had just gotten his driver’s license," she recalled. "He was so proud. He had a day off, and he wanted to go fishing with his buddies."

Ginger Jolley said the deaths of her nephew and his two friends have devastated their friends, families and students in the Alexander Local District.

"They’re all tore up about it," she said, adding that at a service for the three, "the kids there couldn’t even talk, because they were crying so hard… Those boys will always be missed."

Adding to the suffering for the family members, she reported, was the fact that many of them heard the news of the fatal accident on a local radio broadcast before being informed by the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

"We had to find out that way, and it’s a terrible way to find out," she said.

She noted that a scholarship fund for Alexander students is being set up in the name of the three boys, and that Adam Jolley’s family has donated his corneas and skin grafts to an organ donor foundation.

"We were told the skin grafts will help over 50 people and someone would benefit in a large way from receiving his corneas," she reported in an e-mail. "This was the kind of young man our Adam was. He always wanted to help people!"

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My heart goes out to the families
written by Kirk Depeel, July 09, 2009

I have a 16-year son who got his license the same time Adam Jolley did. This accident makes you stop think, not only of these families but your own kids. I can’t imagine how painful this must be for them – and my heart and prayers go out to these families. I know it has caused many people – both students and parents – to rethink how they drive and how short life can be. Perhaps from this tragedy a few lives will be saved as a result. I only wish the cost wasn’t so high. Please accept my sympathies and condolences for your loss.

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