The father of a 2006 Long Reach High School graduate killed while watching  drag racing in Baltimore County on Sunday remembered his daughter as a “sparkling personality.”
 
“She touched a lot of hearts,” Dave Abernathy said of his daughter, Mary-Kathryn Michele Abernathy, 21, who died Sunday at the scene of a crash in on Interstate 70, where she and others had gathered to watch drag racing.

“Our thoughts and prayers are also with the family and friends of her boyfriend, who was also killed,” Dave Abernathy said.

Mary-Kathryn Abernathy, of Columbia, and Jonathan Robert Henderson, 20, of La Plata, were pronounced dead at the scene of the early morning crash in Woodlawn near the park-and-ride lot, where a large group of cars had gathered for drag racing, police said.

The pair was standing on the shoulder when a car struck another car that hit the onlookers.

Abernathy said his daughter was born at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Fla., on April 13, 1988. She was a 2006 graduate of Long Reach High School and a student at Howard Community College, where her major was secondary education and she was a member of the Phi Theta Kappa National Honor Society.

Abernathy was warm-hearted and had many friends, her father said.
 
“She was very much of a people person. She loved hanging out with her friends,” he said.

On the social networking  Internet site Facebook, a page entitled “R.I.P. Mary-Kathryn Abernathy” had attracted 880 members as of Tuesday.
 
“Mary its so unbelievable you(re)_ gone,” read one post. “Just last week i was hugging you and now you(re) gone ... i miss you & i love you, i’ll see you soon baby girl.”
 
“I am so sorry baby you will be missed by so many people,” read another.

Dave Abernathy said his daughter had a fondness for history and wanted to become a high school history teacher.

At Long Reach High School, he said, his daughter was active in drama, participating in a number of productions. In April 2006, during her senior year, she played a cheerleader and sang a musical number in “Heisman: The Musical,” a musical about the founder of football’s Heisman Trophy.

Dave Abernathy, a defense contractor at Fort Meade, said he grew up in Richlands, Va., and his daughter enjoyed the mountains there.

“Mary-Kathryn always considered herself a mountain girl. She loved visiting with her grandparents and her friends,” he said.

Abernathy is survived by her father and step-mother, Dave and Michelle Abernathy; her mother, Lisa Duty; her sister, Robyn Abernathy; her step-brother, Phillip Cooper; and her grandparents, Norma and Roland Villars, Bill and Sue Duty, Robert Abernathy, Fay Abernathy and Larry and Sue Miller.
 
A viewing is scheduled for Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Harry H. Witzke Funeral Home, 4112 Old Columbia Pike, in Ellicott City. Abernathy’s funeral is scheduled for Friday at 11 a.m. at Bethel Baptist Church, 4261 Montgomery Road, in Ellicott City.

Memorial donations can be made to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, Attn.: Jane Stringer, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0336.
 
This article has been updated.

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