DAY OF MOURNING

COTTAGE GROVE — Matthew Knee’s parents had a surprise waiting for their 18-year-old son on Tuesday.

The 2011 Cottage Grove High School yearbook came out that day, and Matt and Katrina Knee, despite missing the deadline to submit photos by two days last spring, managed to persuade the school to include the photo of Matthew standing by the school’s “Graffiti Rock” that he had painted all by himself in the school colors of blue and gold prior to his June graduation.

“His mom and I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face (when he saw the yearbook photo),” Matt Knee said Wednesday.

But they never got the chance.

Along with fellow Cottage Grove High graduate Derek Kovack, Matthew Knee died Tuesday in a head-on crash on London Road south of here, when the Honda Civic driven by Kovack collided with a Rexius delivery truck.

The teens, along with friend and fellow Cottage Grove graduate Marshal Lehman, 17, who survived the crash, were on their way to go fishing, Matt Knee said.

“He was a great kid with a huge heart,” Matt Knee said of his son, who graduated in June and planned to attend Lane Community College this fall to pursue his dream of becoming a history teacher.

A preliminary investigation by the Lane County Sheriff’s Office said Kovack’s car crossed the center line on a bend of London Road just before 2 p.m. Tuesday. The delivery truck driver, Lawrence Bolan of Eugene, was not injured.

There were no new developments Wednesday, Capt. Bill Thompson said. Officials do not believe alcohol was a factor in the crash. An accident reconstruction report will take “some time” to complete, Thompson said.

Wednesday was registration day at Cottage Grove High for seniors and freshmen, and the Knees’ daughter, Kaetlyne, 14, went with her parents to the school to sign up for her first high school classes. The school setting included a “Care Room” in the library where any students who needed to could speak with counselors.

“The school did a great job offering support,” Matt Knee said. “I was very impressed.”

Staff members had fond memories of both Knee and Kovack, 19, a 2010 graduate who was about to start his second year at LCC and dreamed of a career in the culinary arts, as well as Lehman, a 2011 graduate who sustained serious injuries in the crash but is in stable condition at Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield.

“Derek was a real strong personality — a prankster,” said family and consumer studies teacher Sina Kiilsgaard, who had both Kovack and Lehman, members of the school’s football and wrestling teams, in culinary arts classes. “He was a lot of fun to be around. He was a leader.”

She had to keep an eye on the boys, though, because “they’d get carried away,” said Kiilsgaard, who remembers Kovack once giving an oral report with his back to the class, pretending that he was reading from a paper. “He was making the whole thing up,” she said, laughing at the memory.

English teacher Kelly Thex remained visibly upset by the news, tears welled in her eyes late Wednesday afternoon. A Facebook friend of Kovack, she found out about the crash on the social networking site on Tuesday.

“They were both full of life,” said Thex, who had Knee and Kovack in her classes. “They always had time for their friends and people who needed them. They had great senses of humor. They will be very much missed.”

Thex said Kovack did his senior project, involving a research paper and oral report, on “why people should not discriminate against ‘Jediism’” — the “faith” of those who worship the “Star Wars” franchise.

“And he did the whole thing with a straight face,” she said.

Cottage Grove High has experienced several car crash fatalities involving students in the past decade, said former counselor Keith Kessler, who was called to the school Wednesday to help set up the Care Room and to talk with grieving students.

“Most teachers are in education because they love kids,” Kessler said. “So this is really hard for them to deal with again.”

Business teacher Ricardo Florez had both Knee and Kovack in his personal finance class their senior years.

“He was just a really kind, outgoing kid,” Florez said of Knee, whom he knew best because they played morning pickup basketball games together involving faculty and students.

“I’m in there with these kids who are speculating about their future,” Florez said of personal finances classes. “And now they’re not going to be able to have that. That’s probably the hardest thing.

“It’s awful, just awful,” he said.

Reporter Jack Moran contributed to this report.