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University of Wisconsin community members mourned Monday the death of three students killed in a car accident and remembered them as enthusiastic students who positively affected the UW community.

In attendance were dozens of UW students, staff and faculty who shared stories to celebrate the lives of Rick Putze, Lindsey Plank and Dan Myers. 

“These three students had an impact on our campus,” said Dean of Students Lori Berquam, who led the memorial. “We will not be the same without them. Our world won’t be the same without them because we don’t know what they could have become.”

The three students were traveling on the 200 block of Midvale Boulevard on August 27 when their car lost control and struck a tree. Putze and Plank were pronounced dead at the scene, and Myers died later that day at UW Hospital.

Putze and Plank were chemistry students and spent a large portion of the summer filming a series of chemical reactions for distribution on the Internet.

 “This work is something that is going to benefit thousands of students, not only the ones  who come through the chemistry program here at the university,” said Chad Wilkinson, chemistry faculty associate.

Frank Keutsch, assistant chemistry professor, remembered Plank being “full of life and enthusiasm.”

Plank worked on a research team with Keutsch in Northern Michigan last year, and he shared a story about how, after getting a huge number of mosquito bites, Plank just laughed it off.

“You knew she was going to leave an impact on the world because she was so full of life,” Keutsch said. “Losing that is just truly devastating.”

Myers was a promising piano student, said UW music professor Tom Welbourne. As a freshman, Welbourne said, Myers possessed the music theory talent of a graduate.

Welbourne said he was looking forward to following Myers’ career, and described him as a person who was “always ten minutes early” and led class with his quiet leadership and sarcasm.

“I think he had the potential to make some very unusual and interesting connections, creative connections between the disciplines that he was excellent in,” Welbourne said. “And that’s what I’m going to miss most about him.”

Several students, friends and neighbors came up after the faculty spoke and recalled Rick’s love of Billy Joel and Dan’s youth and imagination.

Readings for the evening came from Ecclesiastes 3, made famous by The Byrds’ “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” and Mitch Albom’s memoir “Tuesdays with Morrie.”

In the hours and days following the accident, Berquam said she kept being asked one unanswerable question: “Why?”

“I think the answer lies in each of our hearts, and it will come to be known at some point,” Berquam said. “And until then, we have to walk with this, and be with this, and know that for the short amount of time each of these three people were with us, they left a mark on us, left an impact.”