THOMASVILLE — What would have been one of the most memorable chapters in a young woman’s life came to a tragic end Saturday when Lauren Nicole Herndon died from injuries suffered in a Friday night wreck.

Her fiancé, Robert Clint Griffin, 25, was injured. He is in the intensive care unit at Archbold Memorial Hospital.

Griffin was to have proposed to Herndon Friday night, according to a Herndon family member. Instead, for a reason yet unknown, the 2000 Land Rover Griffin veered off Coffee Road about 8 o’clock and struck a tree.

Herndon, 21, of Statesboro, died Saturday morning at the hospital. She and Herndon, also of Statesboro, attended Georgia State University.

The couple had been dating for two to three years, said Jeanie Smith, of Hahira, Herndon’s aunt.

She said family members told her Griffin was to propose to her niece Friday night. He had asked her father, Mark Herndon of Pavo, for her hand.

“It was his intent to propose,” Smith said.

Herndon and Griffin were en route to Victorian Christmas in Thomasville when the wreck occurred about a mile south of Ga. 122 on Coffee.

The Land Rover was traveling north on Coffee when the driver lost control, traveled onto the west side of the road and struck a tree, Georgia State Patrol Sgt. Ron Warren said Saturday afternoon.

“The cause (of the wreck) is under investigation. We really don’t know,” said Warren, commander of GSP Post 12 in Thomasville.

Troopers will evaluate tire marks on the road to determine the cause of the wreck.

A 2005 graduate of Thomas County Central High School, Herndon was a former member of Thomasville Music and Drama Troupe. A senior at Georgia Southern, she was majoring in International Trade, with a minor in Spanish.

Herndon was an International Outreach council member for Baptist Collegiate Ministries and had served as a youth camp counselor.

“She was loving, gracious, just a wonderful heart, bubbly, full of life,” Smith recalled, adding that Herndon had a beautiful smile.

“She was a beautiful girl with a wonderful spirit,” Smith said.



Senior reporter Patti Dozier can be reached at (229) 226-2400, ext. 220.