VB school communities mourn teen deaths

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The classrooms at the Virginia Beach Technical and Career Education Center are still locations for education. But the absences of three students are providing a difficult lesson in grief for the school community. Nearly 60 students took advantage of counseling sessions available to them after three students died last week. The adults also had some help.

"I even offered counseling for the two teachers that taught the students. It has just devastated this school," Guidance Counselor, Randy Sowala told WAVY.com.

Students and staff at Green Run High School are also grieving. Mathew Kirkbride, 18, Adam Sherman, 17, and Joseph Jenkins, 17 all attended Green Run in the morning, before heading to the Career Education Center in the afternoon. Counselors were inside Green Run Monday, while a constant stream of students gathered outside and placed items on a tree to remember three lost friends.

The three seniors all died after a crash on Salem Road Friday. Sowala told WAVY.com all three had promising futures.

"These individuals made a goal and they studied. They wanted to go into construction trades which is just an incredible way to go when you're 16, 17 years old."

Sowala continued, "You have to applaud students in this day and age, who know what they want and go after it. They knew what they wanted and they were going to go after it."

Sherman, was studying masonry. Kirkbride and Jenkins had sights set on becoming electricians.

Their peers clearly remembered them in classes. One wrote "RIP Adam Sherman" on the chalkboard in Masonry class. Down the hall in the Electricity classroom, a student had placed Kirkbride's obituary at an empty chair.

Monday evening, after the first day of classes since the crash, students lit candles outside Green Run High School. The students signed a tree in front of the school in a tribute to Kirkbride, Sherman, and Jenkins.

Green Run High School will sponsor a Memorial Service for the students Wednesday evening at 5:30 p.m.

It's been a difficult year for Green Run High. The Stallions lost Officer Randy Vaiden just over a year ago. Vaiden died in a car crash on Holland Road last October. In 2007, students and teachers remembered Vaiden in an outdoor service, just a few feet from where students are grieving again.