ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 20, 1996 TAG: 9611200035
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
The yearbook staff at Pulaski County High School had a deadline Tuesday, but few of the students noticed.
The group of mostly juniors and seniors spent the class period hugging each other, crying, laughing and reminiscing about the boy they called "Daffodil."
"He wore this bright, bright yellow shirt," explained Ashlee Hamblin, laughing. "Someone called him that, and I don't know, it just stuck."
Daffodil, otherwise known as Chris Yonce, didn't mind. He told yearbook sponsor Chrissi Lockhart he liked the nickname, and thought it was funny. That was Chris, they said, always finding humor in things, always friendly and good natured.
He and his sister, Stephanie, were killed on their way to school Monday in an automobile accident. Chris pulled out in front of a pickup truck and the two teens died almost instantly.
As news of the accident spread through school, teachers and students spent their classtime talking about the siblings.
The classmates said they're thinking a lot about their friends' parents, Michael and Judith Yonce, who didn't have any other children.
Becky Hancock talked with her third-period English class about Stephanie's smile.
"She was optimistic and bubbly. She just enjoyed being alive and being a teen-ager," she said.
Hancock spent Monday night rereading Stephanie's work. She wrote that she was ready to graduate, even though she was in the 10th grade. She wanted to study cosmetology and own her own shop, Hancock said.
In a biographical poem, Stephanie wrote that she felt "happy, loved and respected" and needed "family, love and God."
Stephanie called her brother her "cab driver," Hancock said, because he would always take her places. Lockhart said she remembers seeing them walk down the hall together holding hands.
"I remember in elementary school, they got their picture taken together for the yearbook instead of doing separate ones," said Andriette Vaughn.
Both participated in the Mountain Academic Competition Conference (often called the MACC team).
Both volunteered. Stephanie spent time at Columbia Pulaski Community Hospital and Chris was a member of the Leo's Club, a high school branch of the Lion's Club. Both were active in their church, the Dublin Church of God of Prophesy.
Chris, a senior, was a member of the National Honor Society and maintained a 4.08 grade point average. He was especially good in math, his classmates said, and he would help out with anything, including their homework.
"I remember last week he was sitting there helping us write our [legislative] bills for the mock Congress" in government class, said Kirsten McKenzie. "He was so excited that next semester he got to do it, too."
Since they heard of the accident Monday, the students said they've driven carefully, and are realizing how this can happen to anyone - including their friends.
"On Friday and Saturday nights, everyone is crazy and you think, 'If some of these people don't slow down, they're going to get in an accident,'" said Hamblin. "But with Chris, you never expected something like this would happen."
Even with different ages and all kinds of backgrounds, the yearbook team said they are becoming a close-knit group. Chris' death, they said, has brought them closer. They wanted to use staff funds to buy a memorial wreath shaped like a yearbook for the funeral, scheduled for Thursday at 2 p.m. in the Church of God on Bob White Boulevard in Pulaski.
The class is already planning a memorial page for the teens, which might include the quote Chris selected last week to go along with his senior photograph: "The present is already the past."
Student Laura White said she can take some solace knowing what good people the Yonce siblings were.
"Whenever something happens like this the first thing I think about is their soul," she said. "But I wasn't worried about Chris and Stephanie, I know they're at peace."
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshots) C. Yonce, S. Yonceby CNB