Quartz Hill High Mourns Death of Honors Student : Accidents: Kathryn Ward, 18, is second senior killed in recent car crashes.

Kathryn Marie Ward was going to be a salutatorian at the Quartz Hill High School graduation later this month, a reward for the 18-year-old honor student with a 3.98 grade-point average. Then she was going on to college, with the $5,000 she earned working in a department store in the Antelope Valley Mall, to study to be a doctor.

Instead, her heart beats today in another teen-ager.

Ward died Tuesday of injuries received in a traffic crash that sheriff’s deputies blamed on a suspected drunk driver whose license had been revoked after an earlier drunk-driving conviction. She was the second Quartz Hill senior to die of highway crash injuries in five days.

Ward, who ranked in the top 10 in her class of 475 seniors, was driving home at the end of the Memorial Day holiday weekend Monday night when her Ford Fiesta was hit head-on by a pickup truck driven by Scott Davis of Lancaster, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

Davis, 22, who suffered a five-inch head gash, was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after he told deputies he “had consumed a few beers” at a holiday barbecue with friends before the 9 p.m. collision, said David Davidson, a sheriff’s investigator.

Davis was arraigned Wednesday in Antelope Municipal Court in Lancaster on charges of felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. Results of a blood test to determine Davis’ alcohol level are not expected to be completed for several weeks, deputies said.

Vehicle registration papers indicate Davis purchased the 1975 Chevy truck six months ago, even though his driver’s license was still suspended from a drunk-driving conviction three years ago, the investigator said.

When she learned of the accident, Kathryn Ward’s best friend, True Ann Pawluk, 17, also a Quartz Hill student, said: “I was in shock. I hung up the phone and I just screamed.”

“I have always been angry when I hear about drunk drivers,” True Ann said. “I get angry when I hear about someone at school who drinks and drives. And I know Kathryn felt that way too. We were not into alcohol at all.”

Ward, who worked as a tutor for the school district, was one of two salutatorians who were to speak at graduation ceremonies at the high desert school June 16.

Active in school sports, including varsity basketball, she majored in biology and science and planned to begin premedical studies in the fall at UC Santa Barbara.

After the accident, about 40 friends and family members gathered at a vigil Tuesday in the waiting room and chapel at Antelope Valley Hospital, praying that the critically injured woman would pull through.

“She planned to be a doctor,” said her mother, Sharon Ward, in an interview Wednesday. She said the family abided by her daughter’s wishes that her organs be donated to others.

“Her organs have helped save five people,” the mother said. “I know her heart went to a 15-year-old girl.”

“She only had one B ever . . . in advanced placement physics,” Sharon Ward added. “She always had a 4.0 average.”

Asked what message she would send to her daughter’s classmates, Sharon Ward said, “My God, don’t drink and drive!”

Torn with grief, she blamed friends of the pickup driver for failing to prevent the fatal accident.

Grief counselors returned to the high school campus Wednesday. Students last week mourned the death of another classmate, Lance Christopher Snodgrass, 17, killed May 25 in a separate accident involving three other Quartz Hill seniors.

“The mood is very pensive, very sad,” Vice Principal Barbara Willibrand said. “Kathryn was very well-liked at school.”

Ward had spent part of the holiday visiting with her boyfriend, Mike Nelson, Ward’s mother said. As was the custom, the young woman was to telephone her friend to let him know that she had arrived home safely.

But Nelson never got the call. Alarmed, he called Sharon Ward. Both were retracing Ward’s route when they came upon the grisly scene in the remote desert, where sheriff’s deputies, apparently called by a passerby, had already arrived.

“We found her,” Sharon Ward said quietly.

The family and a few friends gathered late Wednesday at their two-story yellow stucco home, recently built in the rural area after they sold a nearby sprawling horse ranch they had operated since 1963.

Bill Ward proudly told how his daughter had saved $5,000 to help pay for her college expenses. The family had expected to be celebrating three special events--the birth of the first grandchild, expected soon by the oldest daughter, Suzanne Leese, 25, who lives with her husband in Japan; the graduation of Arlene Ward, 22, from Cal State Northridge on Friday, and Kathryn Ward’s salutatorian message in two weeks.

“We lost a great person,” Bill Ward said.

Hundreds of Ward’s classmates are expected to attend a funeral service at 1 p.m. Monday at Lancaster Baptist Church. Interment will follow at Joshua Memorial Park, said officials of the Halley-Olsen Funeral Chapel in Lancaster.

Family members said a scholarship fund will be set up in Ward’s name at Quartz Hill High School.