Sudden Deaths of Six Leave School Stunned

Six recent deaths, including those of two girls struck by a car while running on a rural road Monday, have left McFarland High School students stunned.

Cross-country runners Sylvia Diaz, 16, and Herlinda Gonzalez, 14, were practicing on a road near this Kern County farm town and veered into the westbound lane to avoid eastbound traffic. They apparently did not see the car, which was approaching from the rear, the California Highway Patrol said.

“A lot of the kids are asking, ‘Why these girls?’ It’s . . . hard to say . . . fate,” their coach, Gary Pierson, said. “God may have some plan. You just don’t know.”

Faculty members said it was hard to know how to counsel McFarland High’s 456 students in the wake of a string of tragedies, including: The July heart attack death of football coach Gerry Pitts. The drowning of James Lopez, 16, in the Kern River this summer. The traffic death of Stacey Morris, a junior, last spring. The stabbing death of Daniel Gonzalez, 16, at a party in 1985.

“I think you can imagine the state we are in,” counselor Betty Wickersham said. “I’ve never known a young group of people to have to deal with so much.”