For Carrie, High Tech's focus was friends.

Carrie could find friends anywhere. Within her first few days at High Tech, back in September of 1998, she made friendships that continued throughout high school and into college. She never stopped making friends either, whether it was at work, at church, or at school.

Even more amazing was the time that Carrie made for all her friends. Carrie was a person dedicated to doing things. She worked in a pharmacy in her home town of Farmingdale for most of high school and then took up babysitting in the summers. She joined the FIRST robotics team along with a group of her friends and ended up being dubbed the Documentation Queen. She attended meetings of the FCA and her church's youth group when she could manage it; she taught Sunday school to the three year olds. She studied Latin and was a member of the Latin Honor Society and she served on the school yearbook staff.

With an activities list like that and so many friends, it would have been easy for Carrie to say that she needed to cut back somewhere. Carrie never did though. One memorable weekend saw Carrie taking a rubber chicken to her junior prom, staying up all night at post prom, taking the SATs that morning, and then joining another group of friends to go to Hofstra, NY, in order to see Rockapella in concert. She would combine studying and fun and take random trips with her study buddy around the state. She would write stories and rope her friends into helping her fit everything into the huge plot arc she was constructing. She would see Star Wars in costume or drag everyone along to go see Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time.

Only one thing in her life came before her friends and that was Carrie's faith. Carrie was a devoted Christian who was always willing to share that but would never force anyone to listen. She discovered God during her sophomore year and became active in her church, never once looking back. She went to Creation and many Christian concerts and had plans to go again. When the time came to choose colleges, Carrie decided to attend Philadelphia Biblical University to study Bible and elementary school education.

Carrie graduated in June, 2002, and started at PBU in the fall. She loved the school and all the opportunities she had to learn and enjoyed working at admissions (at least most of the time) where she gave tours, called interested students, and hosted overnight visitors. After her first semester, she was accepted into the honors program and earned sophomore ranking. Recently, she had been debating going into writing instead, and the options related to that. Carrie was glad to be back home again after her first year at college and was looking forward to seeing all of her friends as they got back.

There are so many other things about Carrie that could never be put into print - her joy, her laugh, her voice, her way of talking, her smile, her attitude, and her hugs - not to mention a thousand more stories that could be shared. She was a daughter, sister, friend, student, classmate, coworker, roommate, and that crazy girl who smiled at strangers on the street and she will always be missed.