As people poured into the family home on Bernhardt Road Tuesday night, they took time to write down some of their feelings about Jodi Elizabeth Smith, a girl described by many as their best friend.
On Airport Road where she died, others expressed their sadness differently — with a roadside memorial that included crosses and numerous messages painted onto the pavement. To many who knew her, Jodi Smith was an angel.
The 18-year-old woman’s death in a one-car accident Tuesday morning rocked a community and hit West Rowan High School especially hard.
“Jodi was and will always be my best friend,” said her twin sister, Jenny, who attends Appalachian State University. “She was the most amazing person I will ever know, and I thank God for giving her to me.”
The Highway Patrol traveled to Boone Tuesday morning to pick up Jenny Smith and bring her home.
The girls, who were fraternal twins, graduated this past spring from West Rowan High School. Principal Henry Kluttz said news of Jodi Smith’s death devastated the school, where the girls’ brother, Patrick, is a sophomore.
Kluttz called off a National Honor Society induction program scheduled for Tuesday night and sought extra guidance counselors to help some of the students cope with the tragedy.
“I guess that’s why we don’t ever stop worrying about them,” Kluttz said.
Kluttz’s own son, Daniel, graduated with the twins.
Jodi Smith’s 1997 Kia went out of control on a curve about 8:55 a.m. Tuesday, crossed the road to the left, hit a mailbox and overturned before landing upright in a ditch. Smith died from injuries she received as she was thrown from the car.
Friends said her employer, IHOP, had called her into work Tuesday morning. She was headed to the restaurant when the accident occurred.
Jodi Smith also attended Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, where she was close to completing studies in cosmetology — coursework that she began when she was a junior at West Rowan High.
Jodi and Jenny Smith’s mother, Pat, is a well-known hairdresser who has worked for years at her home shop off Bernhardt Road. The twins’ older sister, Christy Owen, also is a hair stylist.
“Jodi was a wonderful daughter, loving, sweet and always generous,” Pat Smith wrote Tuesday night at her home. “I was blessed to have had her in my life for 18 years. She was truly an angel on earth.”
The mother also described her daughter as “one of my best friends.”
Bill Smith, the girl’s father, sometimes called her “Knothead.” Sara Pieper called her “Jodly.” Close friend Elizabeth Dunn labeled her “Jodie
Odie.”
Dunn said Jodi’s “radiance and beauty” were evident inside and out.
“She was a wonderful friend who taught me a lot about life, love and faith,” Dunn said. “... Her smile lighted my life as well as everyone else’s.”
Owen, the older sister, hoped that other people would realize how fragile life is — like an eggshell, she said.
“It can break into a thousand pieces and hurt everyone,” Owen added. “There are no words to express the pain and sorrow that I feel in my heart for the loss of my sister.”
Venus Jacobus, a senior at West Rowan High, worked at IHOP with the twins and considered them her best friends. She thinks of the Smiths as a second family.
“She (Pat Smith) knows everybody, and Jodi was just the kind of person who knew everybody, too, and was friends with everybody,” Jacobus said. “They are the strongest, most loving family. For something like this to happen is unreal.”
Jodi Smith had a baby donkey named Nugget, featured in a Post story in July.
Friends said she had a special place in her heart for her young niece and nephew, Christy’s children. One friend recalled that she loved stewed potatoes.
“She was always doing things to make people laugh,” said a fellow IHOP employee, Cassie
Costantino.
Misty Williams said her friend’s “huge smile and laugh always got me in the best mood.”
Jacobus remembered how Jodi had fixed her and Jenny’s hair for the most recent prom. It was Jacobus who spent much of Tuesday night collecting photographs and asking people to write down their feelings about Jodi.
Jodi Smith herself chose something from Helen Keller as her yearbook’s senior quote.
“I’m not afraid of storms,” it said, “for I am learning how to sail my sail.”
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or e-mail him at mwineka@salisburypost.com
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