An ISU student from West Des Moines was killed this weekend in a car accident on a highway west of Luther.

Cheri Mari White, 22, sophomore in art and design, was on her way to Ledges State Park Friday with her boyfriend, 23-year-old Aaron Richter of Ames, when their vehicle collided with another vehicle.

Richter, an architectural technology student at Des Moines Area Community College, doesn’t remember the accident. What he does remember, he said, are the memories of his six years with White.

“How do you sum it up into words?” Richter said Monday from his hospital room, where he is being kept for observation for his injuries. “She enjoyed teaching people, and she liked learning. She said she wanted to stay in school as long as she could so she could learn as much as she could.”

Richter is recovering from two broken ribs and internal injuries, including a laceration on his spleen.

Cheri White’s sister, 18-year-old Natalie, said Cheri was her best friend.

“We were like twins – I knew what she was thinking, and she knew what I was thinking,” said Natalie, freshman in pre-medicine at the University of Iowa. “We look the same. We talk the same. If I had a problem, I could call her. She really was like my adviser. She taught me all the morals of life.”

Cheri White, daughter of Melanie White of West Des Moines and Larry White of Grimes, had a love of learning and was optimistic, her mother said.

“I guess any mother would say this about her daughter, but she was different than other people,” said Melanie White, 39. “She was happy with the simple things, not materialistic. I guess you’d really have to know her.”

Richter, who met Cheri White while she was working at a Des Moines Subway when they were both in high school, said Cheri loved learning, teaching and the West Coast.

“We moved out to Eugene, Ore., and went to school at a community college out there,” he said. “We went hiking in the mountains and down to the coast . it was beautiful.”

The couple returned to Iowa because they missed friends and family, Richter said. Cheri White recently switched her major from engineering and was considering being a teacher, Richter said.

Natalie White said her sister was well-rounded and aware of what was going on around her.

“She’s a rarity,” Natalie White said. “Words will never express what she was really like and how good of a person she is.”