SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A school community came together to honor one of its own after a deadly incident involving her boyfriend last December. Wednesday, her family was presented with her high school diploma during an emotional ceremony.
To say the start of 2026 has been difficult for the Hernandez family would be an understatement.
In December 2025, Rose Hernandez had gotten into a disagreement with her boyfriend, Joseph Garcia, leading to Hernandez being involved in a car accident and died.
As a way to honor her legacy, a memorial was unveiled Wednesday to honor the type of student and person she was.
A 6-foot-tall memorial now sits in the alumni courtyard to honor Hernandez, as well as other Invader students whose lives ended too soon.
Ryan Hnat, Art teacher at West Scranton High School, said, “Not a lot of people have that, and this is in honor of Rose, but this is for anybody coming past, present, or future.”
Friends and family members laid roses at the base of the metal rose memorial, created by students at Scranton’s Career Technical Center.
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West Scranton High School also gave the family an honorary diploma Hernandez would have received this month.
Those who knew Hernandez describe her as a bright person with an even brighter smile.
“She was always laughing when I would see her. We would always be smiling and everything. There was not one moment where I saw her sad,” Jaynellyn Alonso Perez, junior at West Scranton High School, said.
Allson Juarez, another junior at West Scranton High School, said, “There’s days where I look back at the pictures or the videos that we took and just wish I was able to go back in time and kind of relive that, but then, also part of me thinks that she’s in a better place.”
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