CLAYTON — Friends remembered Brittney Hicks last week as a young woman who usually had a coffee cup in hand, asking if she could be excused to go put on makeup.

Brittney was fun, her friends said, but knew when to be serious.

Hicks, a Clayton High School senior who turned 19 three days before she died, was killed May 18 in a one-vehicle crash. Her 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee drifted off the side of Covered Bridge Road a little after 11 a.m., police said. The vehicle veered back toward the centerline, and Hicks overcorrected. The Jeep went off the right side of the road, struck a tree and overturned.

Hicks wasn’t wearing her seatbelt. Police don’t think she was speeding.

The day after the accident, Hicks’ friends and family gathered at Clayton High for a memorial service. Hicks’ mother, Brenda Hicks, said she knew her daughter was special from the beginning. “She was one who could light the room the moment she walked in it,” Brenda Hicks said. “And the moment she walked out, the lights would go out.”

Brenda Hicks was a single mom to Brittney and another daughter, 20-year-old Rachel. Brittney wasn’t living with her mother when she died; she had been staying with a friend, Brenda Hicks said.

A little more than a week before Brittney died, she left her mother a note saying she realized she had made some bad choices, Brenda Hicks said. “I’m going to make it right, and I’m going to work it out,” Brenda Hicks said, recalling her daughter’s words.

On May 18, Brittney left school in the morning because she had earned enough credits to be in the early-release program. She headed to her mother’s house, where Brenda Hicks had overslept and was late for work. If she had been on time, Brenda Hicks said, she wouldn’t have seen her daughter that last time. That morning, Brittney talked to her mother and grandmother, Dorothy Hicks, about her senior project and graduation, they said.

“She was so happy,” Dorothy Hicks said.

Brittney left the house and was headed to change clothes for her job at Buffalo Wild Wings in Garner, Brenda Hicks said. She was scheduled to start work at noon.

Brittney had planned to earn a degree from a community college and then transfer to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

During the memorial service, friends shared memories of Brittney. Tori Lamberth, 19, said she had known Brittney for a few years. When people hear about tragedies, they often wonder what it would be like to lose a loved one, Lamberth said.

“I now know how that feels,” she said. “It is the worst thing I have ever felt.”

A group of boys recited a poem about Brittney, and the crowd lit candles.

A troubling trend

Hicks is one of nearly 30 Johnston County teens who have died in car wrecks in the past few years.

Johnston has been the focus statewide of teen-driver fatalities. Earlier this year, the state kicked off its Drive to Live program at Clayton High.

In response to teen deaths, school and county leaders have taken action. Johnston County Schools changed its driver-education program and increased the number of hours students must train before passing the program.

County Commissioners are working on a plan to educate teens about safe driving.