Community Heartbroken After Music Teachers Die In Car Crash
GRANBURY (CBSDFW.COM) - While playing the piano and organ, Jeremy Bowen dutifully followed the chosen traditional selections every Sunday at First Christian Church in Granbury. Then came the offertory, the time when one member said Bowen, got to play his rock and roll.
"Everybody would applaud," close friend Alexandria Smith said Monday. "Even if they had heard the piece before they were just in awe of it. He would kind of turn and say… thanks."
The church piano will never sound the same again ministers said, after Bowen and his girlfriend Ashley Morrison died early Sunday in a one vehicle crash off I-20 west of Weatherford.
A Texas DPS spokesman said it appeared their car slowly drifted off the road sometime after midnight Sunday as the pair drove from Stephenville. It went into the median as the highway approaches a bridge. It crossed a creek, and hit the embankment on the other side.
There were no signs the car had swerved or impacted anything else. While friends at church wondered where Bowen was, a trooper only noticed the car while helping a Parker County sheriff deputy look for loose livestock.
Bowen, 28, had just started teaching music at Granbury High School. Morrison, 26, had just started teaching music at Hoover Elementary in Azle.
"Connections with kids, connections with people from at least three different faith communities here in town," said senior minister Justin Jeter. "Their mark was all over this town."
In a statement Monday, Azle ISD said Morrison "had proven to be a caring and dedicated teacher."
Granbury ISD said the couple had performed with a choir Saturday, at a funeral service for the husband of a school board trustee.
"A truly outstanding musician and teacher with so much talent and potential," said Kendra Fisher, the head choir director at Granbury High School.
Funeral services are scheduled for Friday. Granbury schools said Monday they would let secondary students out early, so they could attend the service.
