(Editor's note: An earlier version of this story, quoting police statements, indicated that five others besides Rice had died in the accident. More recent reports have revised that figure to two.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (ABP) — California Baptist University head cheerleading coach Wendy Rice was killed and a dozen members of the school’s cross-country team were injured Aug. 9 when the van they were traveling in was struck near Bishop, Calif., by an oncoming SUV that reportedly lost control and flipped.
Two people in the SUV — which a school press release said burst into flames upon impact — also were killed in the wreck.
Wendy Rice (CBU photo)
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Rice, 35, was driving the van in which the 12 athletes were traveling, heading from the university’s main campus in Riverside to a high-altitude-training camp in Mammoth Lakes, Calif. The accident took place around 8:20 p.m. local time, about four miles south of Bishop on U.S. Highway 395.
Rice’s van was the lead vehicle in a group of three CBU vans also carrying student athletes. The other two were able to avoid the accident, although a third vehicle unrelated to the CBU group also collided with the SUV.
The school, quoting Officer Dennis Cleland of the California Highway Patrol, said the injured students had been transported to hospitals. The Los Angeles Times reported on its website the afternoon of Aug. 10 that the students had varying degrees of injuries, from minor to life-threatening.
Rebecca Trupp, 20, of Riverside, suffered severe head trauma and was airlifted to a hospital in Reno, Nev.
The other 11 CBU students were taken to area hospitals. According to the Times, they are: Alyssa Neimeyer, 19, of Temecula, Calif.; David Solis, 19, of Corona, Calif.; Brenda Perez, 20, of Riverside; Alicia Catanese, 21, of Corona; Jennifer McGuire, 17, of Stevenson Ranch, Calif.; Kayla M. Beaudoin, 19, of Corona; Miguel Angel Gonzalez, 18, of Hacienda Heights, Calif.; Marissa Benson, 18, of Gresham, Ore.; Jonathan Monteon, 18, of Chino, Calif.; Jonathan Hernandez, 18, of Moreno Valley, Calif.; and Hanna Ingulsrud, 19, of Ontario, Calif.
Rice was on the trip, the Times reported, because the cross-country team has only two coaches and she volunteered to drive the third van.
Rice, according to a 2008 press release on the CBU athletics website, had been in her position since 2007. Previously she coached cheerleading squads at high schools in Southern California. Survivors include a husband, Jason, and children Joseph and Caitlyn.
“We have lost a beloved member of our CBU family,” said the school’s president, Ronald Ellis. “On behalf of the university community, I want to express our deepest sympathy to Wendy’s husband and their two young children.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones in this terrible accident and with those who were injured,” Ellis said. “We pray for their speedy and complete recovery.”
CBU officials said a memorial service for the university community would be held on the Riverside campus. CBU, founded in 1950, is the only undergraduate institution affiliated with the California Southern Baptist Convention. Its notable alumni include Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life and pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of the largest and most influential churches in the Southern Baptist Convention and the nation.
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