The exchange of words lasted only a few seconds.

“We’d all been partying, and A.J. was in the back of the pickup that had the keg in it,” recalled Jerry Clown, a good friend of A.J. White Bull, one of three Haskell Indian Nations University students killed in the early morning crash that remains one of Lawrence’s worst-ever alcohol-related accidents.

“I said, ‘Man, come with us. We got us a D.D. (designated driver),’ and A.J. said, no, he wanted to stay with the keg,” Clown said. “We sort of grabbed hands, and I tried to pull him down to come with us. But he resisted and tried to pull me into the truck with the keg.

“After that, we let go and I said, ‘OK, man, we’ll be right behind you.'”

Minutes later, White Bull, 25, was dead. Also killed in the crash were students Ray “Mike” Red Elk, 24, and Yancy Longhat, 20. Their friend, Clint Wahquahboshkuk, 23, died several days later of his injuries.

In the days and months since, the crash led to campus discussions of Haskell’s policies on student drinking, has been the focus for increasing awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving — and for regular remembrances of the young men who died that late-summer morning.

On Wednesday, Clown returned to Haskell to lead a ceremony for those who lost their lives in the Aug. 29, 1999, accident. About 40 people, including several members of Wahquahboshkuk’s family, attended the outdoor gathering.

Clown, who lives in Albuquerque, N.M., will discuss the accident and its effect on his life at noon today in Navarre Hall on the Haskell campus. The meeting is open to the public.

“What happened that day changed my life,” he said. “It was accidental, but it was preventable. It’s all about making good choices. All of us have to make good choices.”

Jerry Clown holds a picture of his friend A.J. White Bull, who was one of three Haskell students killed in an alcohol-related car wreck in 1999. Clown, who witnessed the accident, visited Haskell on Wednesday to talk about the accident and to advocate against drunken-drinking. He's pictured in front of a memorial quilt dedicated to White Bull.

Clown, who witnessed the accident, said the Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck, driven by Manuel Brown, was going “so fast on a dirt road that we couldn’t keep up with it.”

He said the truck started swerving on some gravel, hit a ditch and flipped after hitting the railroad tracks near Seventh and Maple streets in North Lawrence.

For his role in the accident, Brown, then 20, was charged with driving while intoxicated and four counts of involuntary manslaughter. He spent 3 1/2 years in prison before being released in November 2003.

“I was in shock. I was in denial. I remember running up to the bodies and telling myself, ‘No, this isn’t what it looks like. This isn’t happening,'” Clown said. “When the police came, it was almost a riot because it was so upsetting and so confusing.”

He and his friends had spent the night before partying in the countryside.

“School had just started,” he said. “There were probably 300 to 500 people there; 10 or 12 kegs.”

The party, he said, began to break up at sunrise.

“All the kegs were (empty) by then, except the one in the pickup,” he said.

After the accident, Clown said he didn’t drink for three weeks.

“But for three months after that,” he said, “I started drinking and drugging pretty hard, harder than I had before. I had to leave Haskell.”

Upon returning to the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in South Dakota, Clown immersed himself in Lakota prayer. Today, he’s been sober for “about four years,” he said.

Emergency personnel tend to the scene of an accident that killed four men in 1999. It was Lawrence's worst alcohol-related wreck.

“It’s helped me heal,” he said. “I still deal with the decisions I made that day — to let them go without a designated driver — but I’m healing. Now, I need to get my message out.”

His message: “If you’re going to drink, make sure you’re with someone who’s going to be sober and can bring you back. Make good decisions … and pray.”

During the remembrance ceremony, Mel Young, a substance abuse counselor at DCCCA, cited several statistics on alcohol-related deaths involving college students.

6News video: Deadly drunk driving accident remembered

Afterward, he praised Clown’s willingness to share his story.

“It wasn’t something he needed to do,” Young said. “It was something he wanted to do. It was an act of generosity and love.”

He added, “It was a beautiful ceremony.”