ADDISON, Vt. (AP) – Everyone knew her as “A.J.”
She was the one who always seemed to have a smile on her face, always wanted to pitch in, always put others before herself. When they heard how Adrienne Devino died, people in her hometown didn’t want to believe it.
“We’re just mourning the loss of a bright light,” said Suzanne Hodsden, school secretary at Addison Central School, where she attended grade school. “It’s affecting the whole community.”
Devino, 18, a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston, was killed Saturday night when she struck a tree while snowtubing during a school trip to Loon Mountain ski resort in Lincoln, N.H., officials said.
She was on a lighted slope when she careened off a trail, hit an embankment and lost her tube, according to James O’Brien, a Northeastern student who was with her at the time.
Temperatures were above freezing and the slope had been groomed, according to Loon Mountain spokeswoman Stacy Lopes.Ski patrol members responded “immediately,” 911 was called and Devino taken to Speare Memorial Hospital in Plymouth, N.H., where she was pronounced dead, according to Lopes.
“This is an extremely tragic event,” said Rick Kelley, general manager of Loon Mountain, said in a prepared statement. “Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Adrienne’s family and friends.”
Her father, Edward Devino, said he was angry with the ski area, believing the accident was preventable.
“They should’ve closed it if it was too icy. They should’ve had protection so they couldn’t get to the trees. It’s an accident that could’ve been prevented.
“It’s awful hard,” he said.
In and around Addison (pop. 1,492), a community of rolling hills and dairy farms in western Vermont, Devino was remembered as a bubbly, self-assured young woman with a list of accomplishments that belied her age.
“She was a friendly, well-adjusted, outgoing, beautiful person,” said Dana Franklin, 49, owner of the West Addison General Store, where she worked intermittently before leaving for college. “She was the type of person who, if we needed time off and she knew it, she’d be the first to say she’d do it,” said Franklin, blinking back tears as he spoke in the office of his store.
“We’re going to miss her terribly,” he said.
“She’s just very outgoing and just really friendly,” said Assistant Town Clerk Marilla Webb, 52, whose daughter was close friends with Devino and who has known her since she was little. “Always willing to take a situation – any situation – and make it fun.”
Ed Webbley, a principal at Vergennes Union High School, where Devino graduated last year, described her as a can-do young woman who thrived as a leader.
“She was senior class president, Student Council president, prom queen, valedictorian – just everybody’s cheerleader,” said Webbley. “She cut quite a wide swath in a small town and a small high school.”
“She had this absolutely effervescent personality,” said Webbley, who remembered her organizing friends to help a classmate who was struggling with Advanced Placement English. “She loved to organize, to motivate.”
At Northeastern, she was a communications major. She aspired to be president someday, her mother said.
“She was one of those people who did it all and did it all very well,” her mother, Linda Devino, told the Boston Globe.
On Thursday, a memorial service will be held in the gymnasium of Vergennes Union High School.
“That was A.J.’s venue,” said Webbley. “She liked nothing more than to get out in front of a microphone and lead an assembly.”
AP-ES-04-02-07 1831EDT
Send questions/comments to the editors.
