USM freshman mourned by friends, family

Fellow students mourn the passing of Lejulia White, a freshman at USM who died early Thursday morning after a drunk driver slammed into her friend’s Ford Taurus.

White and three friends were on their way to Taco Bell when Ronnie J. Matthews crashed into the car on Hwy. 49 around 1 a.m.

Edward Worthy, a freshman from Madison, Miss., said he had spoken with White at a party only 20 minutes prior to the fatal accident.

“That’s why it shook me so hard…I was in total shock for the first few hours,” Worthy said.
Worthy said out of the three survivors, the driver is fine, and the other two girls are still in the hospital. None suffered life-threatening injuries, but one is currently still in intensive care.

“I only knew Lejulia for the first week of school, but I can tell that she would have been one of those people that I would have hung out with a lot,” Worthy said. “She was taken away so soon.”

White was a psychology major and Luckyday scholar. Her Luckyday mentor, Lauren McDonald, said she’d seen Lejulia leave her residence hall Wednesday night. “They were getting ready, all dressed up – they looked gorgeous, of course.”

McDonald, a senior theater major from Jackson, said Lejulia was “very well-adjusted” for only being at school less than a week.

“I’ve never seen her not smiling, being sassy…she never needed any help figuring out how things worked,” she said.

Friend and cousin Alexis Walker, a business information technology major from Camden, said her mother called her early Thursday morning to break the news.

“My mom told me I needed to calm down because my cousins were panicking,” Walker said. “She told me I needed to be strong and take care of them.”

White’s father had died around this time five years ago, and Walker said that White’s mother was only just recovering from his passing.

“It was a shock to everyone,” Walker said. “I know she’s in a better place, but it’s not supposed to be her that went.”

McDonald said White’s untimely death has brought the other girls who lived in the Luckyday hall closer together. “I think her passing had definitely had an influence on the girls,” she said.

McDonald has noticed some of the quieter girls make more of an effort to meet their neighbors and bond with each other. “It’s helped us really become a family,” she said. “It’s become a growing process for them.”

The process for Walker has only been agonizing. 

“I’m trying to be strong, but when I was alone in my room the day it happened, I just couldn’t stop crying.”

Friends and family gathered Monday for White’s funeral in Camden.