By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
The Pepperdine community lost a ray of sunshine March 2 when 20-year-old Seaver College junior Amy K. Ecker died returning from her home in Atascadero, Calif., when the car she was riding in overturned several times off Highway 101 near Santa Maria.
“Her smile would light up a room, and she was the most giving and kind person I ever knew,” said Jennifer Black, who lived in Amy’s dorm freshman year and spent fall in Heidelberg with her. Ecker was a fall 2001 Heidelberg alumna and a sports medicine major with aspirations to attend medical school.
Ecker had come up with 20-year-old junior Jennifer L. Bergeron for a weekend visit to San Francisco. They were heading back to school when the accident occurred at about 8 p.m. Sunday.
Ecker was riding in a 1998 Ford Explorer that Bergeron, of Houston, Texas, driving, according to the California Highway Patrol report. The two left the Bay Area after attending mass that morning, and were traveling south on Highway 101 at speeds of at least 70 m.p.h. when Bergeron tried to make a turn and drifted off the east side of the roadway.
Bergeron then lost control of the vehicle, which overturned several times. Ecker, who was on the phone with her mother at the time, was partially ejected through the passenger door of the Explorer and sustained fatal head injuries. Bergeron suffered minor injuries and was treated and released at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria.
The accident that killed Ecker was the second to affect Seaver College during Spring Break. Freshman Lindsey Lott was severely injured February 23 on Malibu Canyon Road. Since then, a third accident severely injured Seaver sophomore Laura Pearson Tuesday night on Pacific Coast Highway.
While the CHP attempts to sort out what happened to Ecker and Bergeron on the 101, Amy’s friends and family are dealing with the loss of the girl described by an aunt last Monday in the San Luis Obispo Tribune as a “blonde, blue-eyed golden girl.
“She was one of those almost-perfect teens,” Jodi Block told the Tribune. “She was at the top of her high school class, played sports and took part in a lot of activities. She was very involved in the St. William’s Parish Youth Group. And, she loved her family and had tons of friends.”
She was known at Pepperdine for the same smile, the same carefree spirit and devotion to God. Stauffer Chapel filled Monday night, March 3, as friends and strangers gathered to mourn but also to celebrate who she was and the lives she touched.
“We had just seen her in San Francisco that last morning,” Black said. RLO housing appointments were approaching, and Ecker and Black were planning to be roommates their senior year. “The last thing we did is take roommate pictures together,” Black continued.
While the pictures captured their final moments together, simply looking at them doesn’t reveal the attributes that keep her in her friends’ memories and prayers. “Joy and happiness,” Black remembers. “She was such an example of a godly woman.”
Ecker was a member of Campus Ministries’ True North and sang in the Our Lady of Malibu choir. She is survived by her parents, Frank and Syndi Ecker, and a younger sister, Lisa, a junior at Atascadero High School.
Black and four other students drove up to Atascadero Thursday, March 7, to attend the Saturday memorial service held in her hometown and to spend time with the Ecker family. “Her family is incredibly strong,” Black said. “In the time we were there, from Friday to Saturday, I don’t think I saw (her mother) cry more than once.”
Vickie Rabourn, an Atascadero librarian whose son, Sam, was friends with Amy since high school, knows that the pain runs deep.
“I cannot imagine the depth of the pain the Eckers are enduring,” said Rabourn, whose son Sam and Amy were friends since childhood. “This could not have happened to a worse person. Amy would have contributed a great deal to the world. No one deserves this, much less Amy and her family.”
For Williams, Black and the countless other students who knew Amy, it is the memory of her that keeps them strong. “Her smile,” Williams said. “And her laughter…to her, everything was funny.
“She used to serenade me freshman year when I was doing my homework,” Williams recalled. “I would ignore here, and I would seem like I was mad, but I never told her that I really thought it was funny. But they were really bad songs, like ‘60s flower power songs.”
The Ecker family hopes to keep their daughter’s spirit alive through the Amy Ecker Memorial Fund that has been set up by friends and family at Heritage Oaks Bank. In lieu of flowers and cards, the Ecker family has asked that donations be made to the fund, which has been established as a college scholarship fund for Atascadero High School students.
Ironically, Amy was the recipient of the Jared Cunningham Memorial Award in high school. Jared was an Atascadero, Calif., boy who died several years ago in a car accident, the result of a young, reckless driver who was speeding. His family gives out one award a year to a senior exemplifying the qualities closest to those of Jared: intelligent, athletic, kind, etc.
With the Amy Ecker funds, the family will offer a scholarship, much like the one Amy received in high school, to a student that best exemplifies everything their daughter lived for.
Amy left her philosophy through both the people she touched and in the words she left behind.
Friend and Career Services Office Coordinator Jamie Broaddus knew Amy from their internship at the Scimitar Ridge Ranch Leadership Academy in July 2001.
“My mission is to walk with Jesus and be humble enough to let him carry me when I can go no further on my own,” Ecker wrote. “To praise God wholeheartedly through my words, thoughts and actions and to yield to his wishes. To find pure delight in what the Lord has created and to bestow upon others, God’s grace, through me.”
“To love all mankind and live a life filled with laughter, joy and light. To be child enough to dream big and play hard, and mature enough to discern when it is appropriate. To be open to all people and experiences and to be a beacon of light for the lost and weary.”
Broaddus said that the statements were posted on the Web site to keep the students accountable to one another for living out their goals. “Knowing Amy, I can say that she lived out her mission statement,” Broaddus said in the e-mail circulated to Campus Ministry and Amy’s friends.
Dr. Miguel Novak, professor of Spanish, also realized that he had a piece of Amy’s life recorded in an essay she had written for her Spanish 251 class just days earlier. Novak, who had Amy in two of his classes, translated excerpts from her essay, which detailed what makes one happy in his or her life.
“Life is a paradox,” Ecker wrote. “What makes us happy is what also causes our suffering. What we really/deeply wish is what we are afraid of. In my life I want joy but to find joy I realize it is necessary to embrace suffering.
“As K. Ghibran says, (in “The Prophet”) ‘when you are sorrowful, look again in your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy … I have discovered that friendship and love are the most important realities of life … I want to have friendships and find love. With these two realities I am and will be happy; these two realities give meaning to life. Life is difficult but beautiful.”
LOCAL MEMORIAL SERVICE
A local memorial service for Amy has been scheduled for Saturday at 2 p.m. at Our Lady of Malibu Catholic Church. Father Bill Kerze will preside and shuttle service will be provided from campus.
Our Lady of Malibu is located at 3625 Winter Canyon Rd., directly across the street from Webster Elementary School. The phone number is (310) 456-2361.
DONATIONS
In lieu of flowers and cards, Amy’s family has asked that donations be made to the Amy Ecker Memorial Fund, which has been established as a college scholarship fund for Atascadero High School students.
While in high school, Amy was the recipient of the Jared Cunningham Memorial Award. Jared was an Atascadero, Calif., boy who died several years ago in a car accident, the result of a young, reckless driver who was speeding. His family gives out one award a year to a senior exemplifying the qualities closest to those of Jared: intelligent, athletic, kind, etc.
In the same spirit, the Amy Ecker Memorial Fund has set up at Heritage Oaks Bank, 9900 El Camino Real Atascadero, CA 93422, (805) 466-7900, Account #004462602.
March 14, 2002