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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wnep.com\/assets\/shared-images\/icons\/arrow-circle-down.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\nFriends and family came together in a school courtyard in Scranton to honor the life of a student taken too soon.<\/p>\n
SCRANTON, Pa. \u2014 Underneath black cloth is a statue memorializing a West Scranton student taken far too soon.<\/p>\n
A rose to remember, 18-year-old Rose Hernandez, a senior who was killed back in December, now stands tall in the school’s alumni courtyard. Her family stood by, holding back tears as they remember a niece, a sister, and a daughter.<\/p>\n
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“Happy, you know what I mean? Happy in one part because it’s a lot of people, see that at least knew my daughter, how she was,” said Irineo Hernandez, father.<\/p>\n
Officials with the district even presented Rose’s family with her diploma. A part of life that, before her death, friend Allison Juarez says they looked forward to accomplishing together. “She had such a funny, bubbly personality, so if I was ever feeling down, she could really say anything, and I would start laughing,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve never saw her sad, and just seeing like the rose that she’s always gonna be here with us and her friends that she really was more close with that they also have a place and her family too,” said Janellyn Alonso Perez, West Scranton Junior.<\/p>\n
Police say Hernandez died after 18-year-old Joseph Garcia ran her over with a car along Round Woods Place in Scranton.<\/p>\n
Many students who called Hernandez a friend came up with the idea for the statue and even built it themselves.<\/p>\n
It will also serve as a memorial for all students whose lives were cut short.<\/p>\n
“It’s a real shame to have a student or anybody lose their life early, and it was a great way to honor them and make sure people remember, remember those students who lost or didn’t get the opportunities that other students do,” said Ryan Hnat.<\/p>\n
A life taken by tragedy will now be remembered by a beautiful rose that will never wilt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friends and family came together in a school courtyard in Scranton to honor the life of a student…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-209893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}