WINCHESTER ? It’s been too much bad news, too fast for residents of this small Jefferson County town.

There have been three highway accidents in seven days, leaving two young men from the area dead and a 16-year-old girl still in the hospital.

It has been shocking for residents in this town of 580 people about 25 miles north of Lawrence.

“It’s crazy that it all comes up at one time,” said Ed Noll, owner of Winchester Meat Processing and a resident for 47 years. “It’s terrible. It’s just weird how it comes in no time.”

July 19 was a rough day for Winchester residents after 2002 Jefferson County North High School valedictorian Nathan O’Neill, 21, was killed when his motorcycle struck the back of a semitrailer on U.S. Highway 59 west of Winchester.

Later that evening, 16-year-old Megan Foley was driving a vehicle that left Wellman Road south of Winchester and flipped over in a ditch, according to a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office report. She was flown to the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan.

Hospital spokesman Bob Hallinan said Wednesday that an update on her condition was unavailable. Two other teenage girls in Foley’s vehicle were taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo., where they were treated and released. A 17-year-old Olathe girl was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

The tragedies mounted on Tuesday, when the Kansas Turnpike Authority identified Justin Manning, 17, of the Winchester area, as the passenger killed in a one-vehicle accident that afternoon near the junction of Interstates 70 and 435 in Kansas City, Kan.

The streets were quiet Wednesday afternoon in Winchester. Some residents were just hearing the news about Manning, a teen whom some knew from his trips to the city library.

“In a small community, everyone knows everyone. It’s hit everybody,” said Scott Butcher, a high school custodian.

Recent JCNHS graduates Jordan McFarland, Amanda Moore and Abby Noll also worked around the high school Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s too many in this small of a community,” McFarland said.

“It’s bringing the community together,” Noll said. “You can really tell how good our community is because everyone is really trying to help the families.”

About 450 people attended O’Neill’s funeral Saturday at the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Winchester, said the Rev. Paul Finley. O’Neill had recently graduated summa cum laude with a business administration degree from Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pa., and he was a National Merit Scholar.

Finley said O’Neill had just bought the motorcycle, which he planned to take to Brazil in August where he would work with the Mennonite Central Committee on Economic Development. He was going to Brazil to help the poor and to minister, Finley said.

“Nathan influenced a lot of people. Somehow the Lord is – even through his death – going to influence more people,” Finley said.

The other tragedies in the last week also have taken their toll on Winchester residents, Finley said.

“You just don’t know why all of these things have come right now,” he said. “In a small community like this, it affects everybody.”