Nicole Lemmon was a tall, thin, blonde with a smile friends said could light up a room.
"She was gorgeous. But she was someone you didn't feel intimidated by," explained her longtime friend Lindsey Harrison. "She was so outgoing, someone you always wanted to hang around."
Lemmon, 18, was struck by a car early Friday morning and killed on Highway 395 north of Carson City. An investigation into her death is ongoing.
A memorial service is scheduled for 4 p.m. today at FitzHenry's Funeral Home, 833 N. Edmonds.
Harrison met Lemmon in a computer class when they were freshmen at Carson High School in 1998.
"We would always crack jokes together," Harrison remembered. "And we've been friends ever since. You just got attracted to her personality."
Despite her sense of humor, Lemmon had a serious side.
"She was a really smart girl," Harrison said. "She was always the one studying when we wanted to go out."
Lemmon was one of only 19 seniors in the 2002 graduating class to be awarded the prestigious academic letter every year.
"She was obviously a very beautiful girl and very smart," said Carson High Principal Glen Adair.
She enrolled in Western Nevada Community College after graduation.
"She probably would have gone on and done something really important with her life," Harrison said.
In high school, Lemmon and a group of her friends would travel to Lake Tahoe nearly every day to lay in the sun and talk -- mostly about boys, Harrison said.
Jenna Walls also went on those trips to the lake.
"Have you ever met someone that even when you first meet them, you feel like you've known them your whole life? She's one of those types of people," Walls said. "She's one of those people that, right away, you can laugh with."
She said the reality has not yet sunk in.
"I think everybody's still pretty shocked," Walls said. "We know what happened, but it still hasn't set in. We need to remind people that we're young but not invincible."
She called Lemmon's death a tragedy.
"The world lost out on someone who could bring smiles all the time. Someone who could bring life to a room."
