EL PASO - Students and residents in the El Paso-Gridley and Fieldcrest school districts know what many people in the Lincoln area are going through right now.

It was a year ago on Saturday that those two districts lost three high school students in an automobile crash near Flanagan. Another student survived.

In Logan County, communities are mourning the loss of four young lives; the victims of a single-vehicle accident near Middletown late Friday night.

"It's very difficult to go through. Our hearts go out to them," said El Paso-Gridley Superintendent Bill James, whose high school lost Jaclyn M. Mowrer, 16, of Bloomington and formerly of El Paso, on Feb. 16, 2007.

Mowrer's friend Angelia C. Hill, 16, of El Paso, was seriously injured. Their friends, Curtis Turner, 18, of Minonk, and Eric L. Moore 16, of Dana, were killed. They attended Fieldcrest High School in Minonk. Hill returned to school and graduated early in December.

"Time does help," said James, but, "The memories will last."

Four people died in the Friday night accident: Katelyn "Katie" McCarty, 19, of Taylorville, a college student in Springfield; Ross Conrady, 18, of Elkhart, a Lincoln Community High School senior; Christopher McGlasson, 19, of Lincoln, a Lincoln high graduate; and Katie Carpentier, also of Lincoln and a sophomore at Lincoln high.

Surviving from the Friday night accident are Clark Schooneover and Zach Rickord, both Lincoln Community High School graduates. They remained in Springfield Memorial Hospital on Monday in fair and serious condition, respectively.

Coroner Robert Thomas did not return several messages Monday about whether more details of the accident were available. A Logan County dispatcher said nobody with the sheriff's office was available Monday to comment on the investigation.

For students at El Paso-Gridley and Fieldcrest, the deaths of their classmates remain with them a year later.

On Saturday, just hours after news broke of the Middletown accident, El Paso-Gridley High School students sang a tribute, "In Whatever Time We Have," to Jaclyn Mowrer at a competition of high school show choirs in Springfield.

"Several students were deeply touched as they sang," said James, who has two daughters at the high school and who attended the performance.

The school has tried to balance tributes to Mowrer with their concern for Hill, who returned to school in late spring, said high school principal Karen Krugg.

The high school art department is considering doing a mosaic in honor of Mowrer, Krugg said, and during the last softball season, players wore a decal with Jaclyn's number "23." Mowrer also played volleyball and her parents were introduced at the team's Senior Night along with the parents of other team members, James said.

On a desk in Krugg's office sits a can of Dr Pepper, Mowrer's favorite drink, and a ribbon the principal wore at her funeral. It's a quiet reminder that the young woman won't be forgotten, Krugg said.

Turner and Moore, the Fieldcrest High School students who were killed, also are remembered in their community in various ways.

For example, Rodney Ruestman, the Minonk Township Cemetery caretaker, and his family, planted an oak tree and placed a granite marker in the honor of Turner, a family friend.

"I've been taking care of that cemetery for 31 years and I have never seen people respond like this," Ruestman said last year of the tributes left at the cemetery by students and others.

"After graduation, 10 kids came out there and laid their tassels there," he said. "It's just nice that students still want to come out and visit his grave."

Today, Krugg is thinking about how to pay tribute at graduation this year when Mowrer would have graduated.

"You need time to heal and think clearly - to put together what best represents the situation," she said of tributes to students who have died or been so emotionally affected by tragic accidents.

Phyllis Coulter can be reached at pcoulter@pantagraph.com.