Ball State University student Andrea Tallant spent many days driving her roommates to and from class. But one cold day, she and her roommate Danielle Jack gave rides to random students from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Jack said Tallant hung her head out the window yelling "Rides for free!" while Jack drove. They served their riders fresh cinnamon rolls and water.
"People said 'you guys are crazy,' and we said 'yeah, we know,'" Jack said.
At one point, four people, plus Jack's dog and Tallant's cat, shared a small backseat, she said. They made a list of everyone they helped, about 50 to 75 people, and added them as friends on Facebook, Jack said.
"Every single person she met, she didn't even know them but she wanted to get to know them," Jack said. "You brought her all your friends, she'd be nice to all your friends. She probably wouldn't even know who they were."
Tallant died early Monday morning in a car accident on Interstate 69, according to police reports. She was driving north in the southbound lanes when she collided with a sport utility vehicle and then a semitrailer, according to police reports. Her roommates said they never expected anything like this to happen.
Tallant's roommates, who are some of her closest friends, spent the day looking at pictures and talking about their memories.
Even though Tallant and her roommates Holly Cotrel and Allison Rodebeck all lived on the same floor of Studebaker West Complex as freshmen, they didn't meet until they rushed sororities together. Jack met the women through Cotrel, with whom she went to high school.
In the house, Tallant was the peacemaker, her roommates said. None of them fought often or for a long time, Rodebeck said, but when the other women did fight, Tallant stepped in and calmed everyone down. Jack said Tallant didn't like fighting and would lay the situation out plainly for everyone.
"Every time you were ever mad at another roommate you would go talk to Andrea," Cotrel said. "She's like the little therapist of the house."
Along with being the roommates' therapist, Tallant was also their nurse. Jack said because Tallant was a nursing student, she was helpful around the house whenever any was hurt.
Cotrel said when a friend cut his hand open on a glass, Tallant bandaged him up and insisted he go to the hospital to get stitches, even though he and other friends said it wasn't necessary.
"We were all freaking out, and I run up to Andrea's room and grab her, and she knew just want to do," she said.
Rodebeck said Tallant would even pull out her computer while watching "Health Examiner" on the Discovery Channel or other TV shows to look up diseases or disorders on the shows.
The roommates would come home to find Tallant on the couch with her laptop doing homework, and all the girls would watch TV shows such as "Law and Order", one of Tallant's favorites, she said.
"I think it started out that we didn't want to find the remote and turned into 'shut up, it's "Law and Order" time,'" Rodebeck said.
Although Tallant's roommates were like family, she was also very close to her parents and sister. Although Tallant's family declined to comment, Melony Cotrel, Holly Cotrel's mother, talked about the family's relationship.
"She loved her family," said Melony Cotrel, a family friend. "She always talked about them. They had a wonderful relationship."
While growing up, Tallant attended Westfield Washington High School and was on the dance and tennis teams. Rodebeck said Tallant was very smart and skipped a grade in her early education. Tallant could have graduated early from high school, but chose not to so she could graduate with her friends, Rodebeck said.
Tallant was in her second year at Ball State. She was accepted into Kappa Delta sorority, and although she left the organization later on, Tallant was loved by many of the women in it, President Aimee Voelker said. The chapter is planning a candlelight vigil at 9:30 p.m. near Shafer Bell Tower in honor of Tallant, she said.
"Even though she wasn't with us for a while, it still hit pretty hard," Voelker said. "Just because she's not technically a sister doesn't mean she isn't still a great friend of ours."
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