To know Travis Hightower was to love him, and to be friends with him was to be one of the luckiest people on Earth, Baret Steed explained.
“He just loved with his whole heart,” she said between tears. “He walked in the room and your day just got better.”
Travis, 20, died in a car accident just before midnight Saturday night when traveling on Highway 119 near Boat Launch Road, according to Jefferson County Coroner Bill Yates. Travis' car, for unknown reasons, left the roadway, struck a tree and caught fire. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 12:48 a.m. on Sunday. The Birmingham Police Department is investigating the accident.
Steed, sophomore in early childhood education, knew Travis since kindergarten and compared him to a brother. They were neighbors in Birmingham, their hometown, during elementary school and carpooled to school together. They also graduated the same year of high school.
“He was just one of the most caring and loving people I’ve ever known,” she said. “He had a very contagious laugh. He could make, I mean, anyone laugh any time. He just lit up any room he walked into.”
He’s been in every part of her life, Steed added, but she specifically remembers Travis being there for her on her Bid Day when she became a Phi Mu.
“He was the first one there,” she recalled. “And he was a Beta, so he was standing there holding a rose, and he ran up and hugged me and was like, ‘I’m so proud of you.’”
They spent spring break together in Colorado three weeks ago and would spend time together on the weekend, but rarely talked about school. He was a freshman in business.
He loved Auburn football and dressed up as head coach Gus Malzahn. He enjoyed sports and was passionate about his fraternity. He loved all things Dr Pepper — even Dr Pepper jelly beans — Steed said with a laugh.
When Steed was upset over small issues, she remembered how Travis would remind her to keep everything in perspective.
“He would just remind me that life is a bigger picture,” she said.
The Delta Zeta chapter of Beta Theta Pi hosted a memorial service for Travis in the backyard of Beta on Monday at 6:30 p.m. under the pavilion.
At the memorial, various friends and fraternity brothers spoke to a crowd of about a hundred people, all there to honor Travis' memory.
Many of the speakers talked about his faith in God and his journey to rededicating his life to Christ and growing in his faith after coming to Auburn. They assured one another that he is now at the right hand of God.
"Our brother's unexpected death should remind us to spend time with those we love and cherish it," one speaker said.
It was in a Bible study within the fraternity that AJ Forchette, Beta president and junior in electrical engineering, remembers Travis standing out as a "wise and genuine" person.
"Whenever we talked about a topic, he wouldn't speak a ton, but when he did speak, he carried weight," Forchette said.
Atticus Bolling, Beta vice president of finance and junior in economics, names his last memory of Travis as one that will stay with him for the rest of his life. They grilled out together after watching Auburn baseball win against South Carolina on Friday, and the next morning, they grabbed a Polar Pop at a Circle K.
"It was a goodbye other people didn't get to have," he said.
The fraternity, he added, loved Travis as a brother. And Trevor Hightower, Travis' older brother, said his Travis' selflessness made people love him even more.
"All of us will carry a piece of him with us forever because he gave so many pieces of himself to us throughout his life," Trevor wrote in a statement.
Trevor also remembers something his brother always told him.
"'You're my blood brother,'" he wrote. "'You'll always be that, and no one can take that from us."
Sheron and Terry Johnson said they often told Travis they were always proud to be his "gran" and "pop."
"He was never embarrassed to give Gran and Pop a hug and express his love for us," they wrote. "And, above all, he was never embarrassed to say he loved the Lord. He will forever be in our hearts as a precious gift from God."
The thought on most people's minds is "Why did this happen?" and "How did this happen?" Forchette said. But the memorial displayed the impact Hightower had on others, he said.
"Everyone is sad, everyone is shocked, everyone's kind of overwhelmed with grief," Forchette said. "But at the same time I think ... there is comfort in knowing that his life was in the right hands."
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