By Tonya S. Grace, The Kentucky New Era

Crystal Keenan was a very giving, loving and beautiful person, according to her mother, and she had hoped to become a nurse.

As a child, she was always taking care of her dolls -- checking their temperatures and listening to their hearts.

"Mommy, will you come and listen to my baby's heart? Do you think it sounds OK?" Evelyn Keenan, a resident of Hopkinsville, remembers her young daughter asking.

When she grew up, Crystal enrolled in the nursing program at Hopkinsville Community College, but her dreams of becoming a real nurse were cut short when Crystal was killed last April in a car wreck in Cadiz.

Just seven months later, HCC student Chaquela Kornegay also was killed in a wreck.

She was smart and good, her mother said, and she too had plans to become a nurse. She was just preparing to apply for the college's registered nursing program when she fell asleep at the wheel one night and hit a concrete bridge railing with her car.

Both girls were only 19 years old, both had an ongoing interest in the nursing profession, and both will now be memorialized through a scholarship endowment fund that will benefit future nursing students at the local campus. Crystal was a graduate of Christian County High School. Chaquela was a graduate of Hopkinsville High School.

The Student Memorial Scholarship Endowment was unveiled this morning at the campus, with Chaquela and Crystal's parents on hand to witness the occasion.

Crystal's mother, who had written letters asking people to donate to the endowment, said she believes Crystal would have been proud of the scholarships.

"I don't really have a whole lot to say except thank you very much," Keenan said as she spoke a news conference today at HCC campus.

Keenan said she had been approached earlier about establishing a scholarship in her daughter's memory, and she helped solicit initial donations for the fund by contacting hospitals and doctors to see if they would be interested in making contributions.

"I sent letters to these because Crystal wanted to be a nurse, and I thought they might be willing to support nurses," she said.

Theresa Kornegay, a lab technician for Pennyrile Family Physicians, points out that there is a need for nurses in the medical field right now and many nurses are overworked because of their patient loads, she said.

Kornegay said her daughter also had applied for scholarships as a college student, and she thinks it's a great honor that Chaquela will now have a scholarship fund named in her honor.

The endowment fund received initial investments totaling $15,000 from the Fort Campbell Federal Credit Union and Cayce Mill Supply. Additionally, $1,565 in memorial contributions honoring both Chaquela and Crystal has also been received to support the fund.

Contributions may continue to be received throughout the year, and the fund potentially could be expanded to honor other students as time goes on, according to college officials.

The fund, according to Dr. Bonnie L. Rogers, HCC president and chief executive officer, will be a perpetual fund that will continue to provide scholarships to students who attend the local college.

Rogers said that the fund most likely will be used to benefit nursing students in its first years, although its scholarships may benefit students pursuing other career fields later on.

A scholarship committee will determine which students are awarded the scholarships, she said.

"Endowments are important to the students and the college because they are an investment in the future," Rogers observe.

"We deeply regret what has happened," she added. "(These students) did make a contribution while they were here. They were active and well-known, and they will continue to make a contribution."