DATE: Friday, September 5, 1997             TAG: 9709050578

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   38 lines

RECENT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE DIES IN SUFFOLK HIGHWAY CRASH

The cause of an accident Thursday that killed a teen-ager and injured another has not been determined.

James M. Culliton III, 19, who graduated from high school last month, died in the single-vehicle crash after the Jeep Wagoneer he was driving overturned several times, police said. The accident happened about 1:20 a.m. Thursday on the U.S. Route 58 Bypass, just west of Godwin Boulevard.

A passenger, Nicholas A. Locascio, was flown by Sentara Nightingale helicopter ambulance to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Locascio, also 19, was in stable condition Thursday afternoon, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Culliton was headed east when he apparently lost control of the vehicle, which overturned, then ran off the right side and flipped at least twice more, a police report said. Culliton was not wearing a seat belt, but police were not sure whether he had been thrown from the vehicle.

Culliton had taken summer classes at Lakeland High School and got his diploma in August, said his father, James M. Culliton Jr. His son had been working at Cosmo's Diner in Chesapeake, he said.

The mood was somber at the recently opened diner, said manager Betty Vaughan, who had hired Culliton as a fry cook about five weeks ago. The workers - most of them about Culliton's age - were as close as family, Vaughan said.

His death had ``really blown the staff away,'' she said.

He was always joking and lifting everyone's spirits in the hot kitchen, Vaughan said. ``He was helpful, so positive.''

And he was very particular about the plates of fried seafood he sent from the kitchen, she said.

School officials provided grief counseling for students who asked for it Thursday morning, said Lakeland principal William N. Hill.

``Any time we lose a teen-ager, it's a tragic loss,'' Hill said. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY

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