Candlelight illuminated the sidewalk in front of "Frog Baby" fountain Tuesday night as more than 50 people gathered to celebrate the life of Ball State University student Andrea Tallant.
"If it was her, she'd rather us have fun, a celebration instead of a mourning," Kappa Delta President Aimee Voelker said. "That's just the kind of person she was."
Tallant, 19, died in a car accident early Monday morning while driving the wrong way on Interstate 69. She hit an Explorer head-on, which was then hit by a semitrailer.
As ribbons of remembrance were passed out, Tallant's roommates, former Kappa Delta sorority sisters and friends huddled together and began the vigil in her honor. Tallant was a member of Kappa Delta for several semesters before leaving the organization and was close to many members of the greek community, including members of Phi Gama Delta Iota fraternity.
"Tonight, tears will be shed, but in the end, this is for Andrea," Mike Greenwalt, Phi Gama Delta Iota member, said.
As the vigil commenced, attendees sang traditional Kappa Delta songs, said prayers, listened to a poem about what a sorority sister is and shared stories about Tallant.
"There wasn't a day that I talked to her that she didn't put a smile on my face," Amber Sprunger, one of Tallant's best friends, said. "She was really an amazing person. She would want people to laugh; she was just the kind of person who wanted everyone to be smiling all the time."
In their prayers, Tallant's friends wished her well and said they knew she was smiling down on them from heaven.
Having known Tallant since the third grade, Sprunger and her twin sister Heather recalled how the three girls were often called triplets in elementary school and would wear matching outfits from the Gap.
"We were Gap nerds," Amber Sprunger said.
Heather Sprunger also talked about Tallant's dance moves when they were on the dance team in high school. Tallant's crazy, sometimes idiotic dancing cracked everyone up and made people smile, Heather Sprunger said.
Holly Cotrel, one of Tallant's roommates, spoke to the friends gathered at the vigil and encouraged everyone to stop by her house and help Tallant's roommates make a scrapbook that will be given to Tallant's mom and displayed at her viewing Friday.
Friends also wrote messages to Tallant and memories in notebooks that will be buried with her.
"[Tallant] would have wanted everyone to remember her smiling and laughing and remember the brighter side of everything," pledge sister Jenn Comer said. "She embodied what it meant to be a Kappa Delta."
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