Stephanie Summar

Features Reporter

When Caitlyn True’s classmates at Fruita Monument High School elected her as the winner of “Best Smile” for their senior superlatives, nobody was surprised. True, a passionate dancer who earned the nickname “Smiles” for her infectious optimism and vibrant personality, died of injuries she sustained early Saturday Oct. 18 after falling from a moving vehicle. It was a tragic accident, but the Mesa State College Dance Society is determined to carry on True’s legacy by participating in the “Caring and Sharing Warm Hearts Project,” a cause close to True’s own warm heart.

The project began as a school assignment and mushroomed into something much larger. After watching the film “Pay It Forward,” True and her classmates each tackled a project that would help make the world a little bit brighter. “Warm Hearts” collects new and gently used blankets and coats to donate to less-fortunate community members. In honor of True, Fruita Monument High School, the Mesa State Dance Society, True’s dance studio Absolute Dance, and several local businesses are all participating in a drive that will ensure a successful collection for the charity.

True performed in several Dance Society pieces, and a number of Grand Junction Symphony performances, which are done in collaboration with the college. Two years ago, she performed on campus in a hip-hop number, her favorite style of dance, and danced in another piece a year later. Last week was painful for all of True’s friends on campus including her sister Brianna True, a sophomore at Mesa State. It inspired them to make a positive, long-term impact on people’s lives, just as True had had on theirs. “I feel like it (the project) should be carried on because my sister loved everyone. She wanted to help everyone,” Brianna True said.

The tragedy also deeply affected Kelly Rohr, president of the Dance Society, whose younger sister was a classmate and close friend of True’s.

“It was really hard to see my sister go through it, and I knew that we had to do something, especially since she was a dancer,” Rohr said. “The dance community of Grand Junction is very small, so when something happens to one of your own, you have to help out in some way,” Rohr said.

Rohr expects to have collection bins or drop-off points for blankets and coats in every building on campus by next week.

“We talked, as the dance society, about doing something in Caitlyn’s name, but we can only do so much within a short time period. We wanted something that will help in the long-run, and this project has that potential,” Rohr said.

“Warm Hearts” is just one of the ways True is being remembered. A donation fund has been created in her name at the Roice Hurst Humane Society. At Stocker Stadium Friday night for the Fruita/ Grand Junction football game, Fruita Monument had a Blue-Out in Caitlyn’s honor—the students all wore bright blue and spiked their hair in homage to True’s uniqueness.

“Caitlyn always stood out,” Rohr said. “No matter what it was, she’d find a way to stand out. She was very different in that way. She’d stop washing her hair for a week just to save water for the whales. That’s the kind of person she was.”

“She loved hip-hop; anything hip-hop. At her memorial service, they’re requesting that all dancers show up in bright colors and hip hop attire because the family’s tired of black. That is so perfect, because Caitlyn was a senior this year–the senior color at Fruita is black– and she’d come in bright blue just because that’s how she was. I think they’re trying to just pull the dance community together.”

True was an organ donor whose organs saved several lives the day she died. Her loving ways will live on in the work that’s being done for the community in her honor. Although dealing with her loss has been heart-wrenching for her many friends at Mesa State College, and especially her sister, Rohr thinks the knowledge that True continues to help others keep smiling after her death will make it a little easier in the future.

“She cared a lot about people and I just want people to know that about her” said Brianna True.

ssummar@mesastate.edu