In a high school Spanish exercise, Sarah Elbayoumy once was asked what she would do if she won $2 million in the lottery.

She replied without hesitation that she would give it all to the Islamic Center of Lawrence, 1917 Naismith Drive.

But the 16-year-old Free State High School scholar — who died Dec. 28 in a car wreck near Columbia, Mo. — ended up leaving a different gift for the Islamic Center. On Thursday, there was no room to sit and barely room to stand inside the building as about 300 people from throughout Lawrence crowded in to celebrate Sarah’s unusual, exemplary life.

Memorial services are not part of the Muslim tradition, and there had never been one at the local Islamic Center until Thursday. The center’s board made an exception because of the flood of community support in the wake of Sarah’s death, said her father, Moussa Elbayoumy, the center’s director.

“Part of her gift to us is that she, for the last few years, has been trying to work as a living bridge between the Muslim community and the Lawrence community,” Moussa Elbayoumy said. “A lot of these people had never … heard a call to prayer or a reading from the Quran. She brought all these people to the Islamic center in a good context.”

Sarah had a deep faith, her father said, but she didn’t preach. Instead, she tried to live her life as “a beacon,” Moussa Elbayoumy said.

Speakers at the service described Sarah as a loyal friend, a patient study partner and a talented musician who could read choral music perfectly at first sight.

Sarah made a habit of attending friends’ concerts and sporting events just to show her support, friend Emily McEnroe said.

Moussa Elbayoumy, left, embraces and kisses his daughter, Nora, during a memorial for his elder daughter, Sarah, who was killed in a car accident. Hundreds of friends and family members gathered Thursday at the Islamic Center of Lawrence for the memorial service.

Stuart Strecker, Sarah’s high school Spanish teacher, read aloud the college-admissions recommendation letter he never got to send off for her. It began, “Sarah Elbayoumy is smarter than I am.”

Audience members cried as Sarah’s 9-year-old sister, Nora, clung to her parents at the front of the room and wiped away tears. But the service was intended to be a celebration, and it had its funny moments, as when Sarah’s mother, Maggie Khater, reacted with surprise to the number of young faces in the crowd.

“I always told her she was too cerebral of a teenager to fit in,” Khater said.

The program featured a photo of Sarah wearing a T-shirt from the college she planned to attend, Duke University.

She died in a wreck on Interstate 70 near Columbia, Mo., after her family’s vehicle blew a tire, crossed the median and overturned. At the time, she was going to St. Louis with her mother and sister to visit colleges.

Sarah’s life may have seemed short, but it wasn’t, her father said in his remarks. It was just the length God intended, he said.

6News video: Free State student memorialized Obituary FSHS student killed in wreck (12-30-03)

Hamad Ghazali, a Muslim leader from Kansas City, said he prayed that as Sarah lived temporarily in the grave, God would open a door through which she would smell and see paradise — and that, after the last day of judgment, she would live in paradise eternally.

“We all belong to Allah, and to Allah we all return. This is what we say in a time of difficulty,” Ghazali said.

Khater issued a challenge to crowd members at the end of her remarks.

“All of you young people, make her proud,” she said.

Hundreds of friends and family members gather at the Islamic Center of Lawrence to remember Sarah Elbayoumy, a 16-year-old Free State High School student who was killed in a car accident. Speakers at the memorial tribute remembered Sarah for her intelligence, kindness and faith on Thursday.