Tuesday October 16, 2001

Shannon Renee Peterson

UA junior Shannon Renee Peterson was killed Thursday when she apparently fell asleep at the wheel while driving on Interstate 10 and crossed the highway median into oncoming traffic. She was 20.

Peterson, who recently changed her major from geology to studio arts, was driving from Tucson to Phoenix to visit her family. But when she reached milepost 188.9 near Casa Grande, she crossed the median and was hit by an Isuzu Rodeo traveling southbound on I-10.

"Apparently she was hit and lost her life immediately," said Mel McDonald, a family friend.

Peterson, a Phoenix native, studied geology until last week, when she decided she wanted to start her own scrapbook store and became a studio arts major with an emphasis in photography and a minor in business.

"Even though I am both brilliant and beautiful, I cannot keep up with all the work of a science major," Peterson wrote in an e-mail announcing her change to her friends just last week. "I think I will be happier (with an art major)."

Peterson was going home to share her excitement over the decision with her family.

It was Peterson's sense of humor and energy that touched people most about her, said her mother, Ann Peterson.

"She was so beautiful and smiling and happy and full of life," Ann Peterson said. "She had this beautiful twinkle in her eyes."

Ann Peterson said Shannon's older brother had received a card from Shannon on Thursday, the day she died, congratulating him on completing law school and writing how proud she was of him.

"We were being touched by her at the same time we were losing her," Ann Peterson said.

Shannon Peterson worked at Making Memories Remembered, a scrapbook store on Broadway Boulevard, where she had just been offered a partnership.

"She loved helping people take their precious memories and make them more precious by saving them," Ann Peterson said.

A visitation and vigil service took place in Phoenix last night, and there will be a funeral mass at 1 p.m. at St. Timothy's Catholic Community at 1730 W. Guadalupe Road in Mesa.