Former athletes just out of high school, a young couple who kept postponing their wedding date until the time was just right.

Family and friends of six people killed in a car wreck over the weekend spent Christmas Day mourning their loss and remembering.

“They were terrific young men,” said Bill County, who’d coached Michael Cournoyer and Robert Bruce on his Lewiston High School football team. Cournoyer graduated from LHS in June 2005, Bruce in June 2006.

Both had played for him all four years. “We’d kid them both a little, ‘You guys have got to say something once in a while.’ They both had shy, smiling attitudes,” County said.

Tom Fournier, lacrosse coach at LHS, described Matthew Manley as a very talented athlete. He had also graduated in June 2006.

Manley hadn’t been team captain, but “He was one of the leaders of the team, encouraging to underclassmen,” Fournier said. “He was just a kid (that) had a great smile that lit up the room.”

As soon as he heard about the accident, Fournier went to Central Maine Medical Center on Sunday morning. Fournier’s son and Manley were good friends. They’d played soccer together.

“I was just getting there when they were getting the news there was nothing they could do,” he said. “It’s going to be a tough week. Four promising young men from our community are gone.”

Lewiston High Principal Gus Leblanc opened the school Sunday and said about 200 students came in, many of them home for the holidays, wanting to talk about their former classmates. He planned to meet with members of the high school’s crisis team today to discuss plans for the rest of the week.

LHS lost three students involved in the Air Force Junior ROTC program this summer in a plane crash in Newry. Having back-to-back tragedies, “It’s tough for the school. Even though these students had actually graduated, they’re still part of the high school family,” Leblanc said. “It’s tough, it’s sad to go through that.”

He believed the fourth person in Cournoyer’s car, Jacob Roy, graduated from St. Dominic Regional High School. New Principal Donald Fournier said he didn’t know Roy and planned to talk with a guidance counselor to see how the school would reach out to students.

Mickie Caron, Laura Caron’s aunt, said her niece and Steven Walton had been together nine years. They’d recently bought a house in Poland and spent time doting on their dog, a pit bull named Achilles. He died in the car with them.

“Laura was a very easy-going, laid back, quiet person,” Mickie Caron said Monday. She worked at Ruby Tuesday’s. Steven had picked her up Saturday night after her shift to finish Christmas shopping. “They had a very good relationship. They were pretty much inseparable.

“Steve was a fun kind of guy. He cared the world for Laura,” she said. “He made friends easily. Watching him and Laura together, their relationship seemed so be so infectious.”

Money had been tight, and Caron said her niece had been excited this year because it was the first time she could afford gifts for everyone.

Caron said she hoped to start a fund today to raise money for Laura and Steven’s funerals. Their families weren’t prepared for a big expense like this so suddenly, she said.

Visiting hours had already been set for Friday at the Albert & Burpee Funeral Home for Cournoyer. A Thursday service at Bates College Chapel was also announced for Bruce.

Caron had answered a call at 3:30 in the morning on Christmas Eve with news of the couple’s death.

“It was just shocking. In your mind, you’re just thinking, it’s not true,” Caron said.

Echoed Coach County, “We were stunned. As a teacher, if you’ve been teaching long enough, you’ve lived through this nightmare a few times. It doesn’t get any easier.”