LEWISTON — A 21-year-old Lewiston native with an infectious smile, who graduated from Hebron Academy two years ago, was killed this month in a car crash in North Carolina.

Isabella Gendron Submitted photo

Isabella Gendron died Aug. 16 when a truck ran into the side of her Mercedes-Benz while she sat waiting to make a turn at an intersection in Mooresville, North Carolina.

Gendron, a student at Rollins College in Florida, had a wide circle of family and friends in the Lewiston area who are mourning her death.

John Gendron, her father, said Monday that he misses “my little Belly. I know everybody else has the same feeling.”

Lisa Spiller Carroll, a family friend, said Gendron was “the most precious gift a family could have,” with an infectious smile accompanied by a strong will.

She said the world has lost a “beautiful soul.”

Her family said Gendron, known as “Belly” by many, “was a bright light in the lives of all who knew her. She was sweet, kind, thoughtful and beautiful on the inside and out.”

She had a lifelong love of animals. As an eighth-grader at St. Dominic Academy, Gendron raised money for the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society as part of a community service project.

Gendron attended St. Dom’s in Lewiston for years, where she played high school tennis, and graduated high school from Hebron Academy in June 2022.

In a 2021 “Students in a Golf Cart Answering Questions” video for Hebron, Gendron said that Rollins was her first choice for college because it has a good business school — and she wanted to be in Florida.

With a chuckle, she said she’d put up with Maine winters for 18 years already “and it’s been too long.”

She said she hoped to run her own business someday like her father.

Her top advice for students? “Make friends with everyone. That’s what I did.”

She also advised, “Live every day one day at a time.”

Her family said “her passion for learning new things and zest for life were evident in all she did.”

“Such a tragic loss,” said Stewart Smith, an Old Orchard Beach photographer who thought so much of her that he once posted a video of a photo shoot with Gendron.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol said a distracted driver of a utility truck swerved around a car slowing ahead of him and plowed into Gendron’s stopped vehicle on a rural highway.

The driver, 65-year-old Mark Carl Rigby, was charged with a misdemeanor death by motor vehicle and failure to maintain proper lane, according to local news reports.

John Gendron said that “we as a family want to thank everyone for their support. There are no words that can help through this impossible time. All we want is to spend Belly’s special day with everyone that loves her.”

Visiting hours for Gendron are slated from 3-7 p.m. Friday at Pinette Dillingham and Lynch, 305 Alfred A Plourde Parkway in Lewiston.

A funeral mass is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul Upper Church, 122 Ash St. in Lewiston.