Features

Forever 20: Andrea

Charlotte Heinrich, editor-in-chief| October 29, 2019

*This story contains anonymous sources.

Andrea Newbold during her time at Drury University. Photo courtesy of Julie Goodmann.

She would speak with her hands.

She loved big sweaters. The cold weather, that was her thing.

She constantly had a smile on her face.

She didn’t have to drink to be the life of the party.

She was a true friend, someone you could always talk to, no matter what.

She was killed by a drunk driver early in the morning Dec. 9, 2001.

She was 20.

She was Andrea Newbold.

Julie Goodmann said Newbold was her best friend at Drury University. When her sorority president called saying Newbold had been in an accident Sunday morning, she didn’t believe it.

“I got up and her door was open,” Goodmann, gym teacher, said. “All of her rings were on the table and she was not there. For some reason, we went and looked for her. Then we got word [that] she had passed away, which was just devastating.”

Goodmann said the entire university was distraught. That Wednesday afternoon a packed crowd of Drury students watched a mother and father bury their child in Springfield, M.o..

“You have somebody there one day, and the next day they are gone,” Goodmann said. “You didn’t get to say goodbye. You didn’t get to hold their hand. She didn’t get to be 21. She didn’t get to have kids. She didn’t get to get married.”

In December 2010, nearly nine years later, tragedy struck again for Goodmann. Emily Ferguson, KHS alum and Goodmann’s former volleyball player, drove drunk on the wrong side of the highway Dec. 7, 2010 on her way home from the University of Missouri (Mizzou).

“As soon as that happened all of my players called me screaming, ‘Coach, you told us not to do this! What was she doing?’ and [I said], ‘I don’t know,’” Goodmann said. “I got through it by helping my players and keeping her memory alive too. She made a wrong choice but she was a good kid.”

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22% (53/233) of KHS students have been in a car with a drunk driver.

“Some bad decisions you can come back from and others you can’t,” Craig Dickinson, health teacher, said. “If you get in the car and cause an accident and kill someone, you can’t take that back.”

According to TKC’s recent survey, 22% (53/233) of KHS students have been in a car with a drunk driver and 9% (29/308) have driven drunk themselves.

A senior girl, *Jane Doe, said drunk driving in her friend group became an issue as soon as they began to get their licenses.

“There have been a lot of instances where they are supposed to be the driver of the group but then throughout the night you’d realize they were drinking more than they could handle,” Doe said. “I’ve had to take over sometimes. It’s scary to think about how if I wouldn’t have been there then they would’ve gotten in their car.”

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You have to think about how you want to be remembered.

Goodmann said that when she tells Newbold’s story her goal isn’t to make people upset or feel bad, but rather to save lives.

“One decision,” Goodmann said. “That’s one thing I talk to the volleyball girls [about]. One decision. Kids think they have a shield or bubble wrap and it’s not going to happen to them. But they need to think about who it will affect. You have to think about how you want to be remembered.”

Before every home volleyball game, Goodmann says she looks at a photo of Newbold on her desk and prays. She prays to Newbold to watch over her team and to be their angel because, she said, Newbold has always been her angel.

“I can tell you that nobody will forget a person like that,” Goodman said. “You want a friend like her. She was incredible.”