Girl, 17, Killed in Car Crash

A 17-year-old girl who was preparing to graduate this week from Paraclete High School in Lancaster died Tuesday after her car swerved off the Antelope Valley Freeway and crashed into an embankment, police said.

Emily Hofmeister, whose graduation was scheduled for Friday, was alone in a 1991 Lexus and driving north on the freeway at “a high rate of speed” when the crash occurred, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Hofmeister had passed a tractor-trailer and as she pulled ahead of the truck her car veered far to the right, authorities said. It hit a guardrail and went off the freeway, landing upside-down on the embankment near Avenue P-8, CHP Officer John Seumanutafa said.

Hofmeister, of Quartz Hill, was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:17 a.m. by county paramedics, said David Campbell of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. She was not wearing a seat belt, authorities said.

Her father, Harold Hofmeister, said she had gone to her boyfriend’s house in Lancaster to take his sister to a Little League game. She had promised to be home by 11 p.m., said Hofmeister, a Lancaster fire captain.

When his daughter failed to return home, Hofmeister said he called the boyfriend, who said she was headed home. Hofmeister said he drove the route he knew his daughter would have taken and stopped when he saw an ambulance and fire engine.

“They said she had passed away,” Hofmeister said of the rescue workers, some of whom he knew. “She was an outgoing person who wanted to experience life.”

The family said Emily Hofmeister was driving her mother’s Lexus instead of her own pickup because her mother thought it was safer.

Hofmeister was planning to study business at San Francisco State University, her family said.

On Tuesday, Hofmeister’s senior photo was displayed inside the chapel at Paraclete High, a Catholic school, and friends and teachers wore pink ribbons in her memory--pink was her favorite color.

“When she walked in, she just brightened up the room,” said 16-year-old Maggie Courtney, a junior and fellow cheerleader. “I’m going to miss her so much.”

“She always had a smile on her face,” said Kelsey Vincent, a 17-year-old senior and close friend. Kelsey said her friend was a bright and beautiful girl. “It hasn’t hit me yet.”

Father Joseph Scalco, the school’s spiritual director and Hofmeister’s French teacher, described her as “an all-American girl.”

She was an honor roll student who “never gave any attitude to anyone,” he said.

“If you didn’t know her, then you actually missed out on someone special,” English teacher Stephanie Kirkwood said.

Another friend, Tiffany Brouwer, 18, said she, Hofmeister and several friends had dressed up for Halloween as the Pink Ladies from the movie “Grease.”

“I’m in a zone right now. It’s unreal,” said Brouwer, who remembered how Hofmeister liked to joke during cheerleading practice. Hofmeister was the group’s therapist, Brouwer said, always ready with sound advice.

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Times staff writer Patricia Ward Biederman contributed to this story.