Rachel Nordby was someone people always remembered after they met her, her mother, Carol Nordby said.

The 21-year-old from Blair died in a car accident June 24 in the town of Hale in Trempealeau County.

Rachel attended Western Wisconsin Technical College in La Crosse, and then transferred to UW-Eau Claire, where she completed three years of school.

She worked at the Eau Claire Athletic Club and made friends there who also attend the university.

“Her friends meant a lot to her,” Carol Nordby said. “She was close with a lot of people.”

Jonathan Holter worked with Rachel at the athletic club.

Holter talked about her warm smile and said Rachel was an outgoing person.

“She was just a good friend,” he said.

Rachel loved holidays, cars and music.

Her favorite holiday was Christmas, when she would hand out presents to everyone, Carol Nordby said.

As a big fan of the band Aerosmith, Rachel joked about marrying Steven Tyler.

When Rachel was 16 years old, her first car was a gold Cadillac, which started her interest in naming her cars. It was everything from Clifford the Cadillac to her next car, Oscar the Oldsmobile, her mother said.

In her memory, the Eau Claire Athletic Club established The Rachel Nordby Scholarship Fund, senior Mai Lo said. Lo knew Rachel for two years and was a friend and co-worker at the club.

So far, the scholarship fund raised more than $1,200 in her name. They wanted to pick someone with similar values to Rachel’s to carry on her name with the scholarship.

Money also will be raised for the fund at the 12th Annual Turkey Trot Nov. 28, on Thanksgiving Day. It is a 5K run-or-walk fund-raiser.

Chancellor Donald Mash and Larry Morse, psychology department chair, attended the wake for Rachel in June.

“They all had really nice things to say about her,” Carol Nordby said.

In addition to the scholarship fund, Rachel’s name also lives on because she was an organ donor. Her family received a letter from the state of Wisconsin that said Rachel’s corneas were transplanted into two people, Carol Nordby said.

They received a “thank you” from Gov. Scott McCallum as well.

Some of Rachel’s tissue was donated and helped a 10-year-old girl who was burned in a car accident.

“She always cared about people,” Carol Nordby said.

Once during winter, Rachel was going somewhere in the morning and she saw a man on the sidewalk. She helped him and called 911, and gave him a shirt to keep warm until the police came.

Rachel always was there to offer people help when they needed it, Holter said.

She was the kind of person that didn’t put herself before others. “Rachel never hesitated,” Carol Nordby said. “She reached out to everybody.”