UF electrical engineering student Thomas Hollister and his father, David Hollister, were killed Saturday when a pine tree fell on their car, causing it to swerve into a ditch.
Hollister and his father were driving on U.S. Highway 98 on their way to Carrabelle, a beach town in the Florida Panhandle, when the accident occurred, according to Carolyn Mulbach, a senior at Florida State University and Hollister’s high school friend.
Hollister was a transfer student, and it was his first semester at UF, Mulbach said.
Hollister, who was born in Africa and raised in Thailand, was interested in traveling, playing the drums and cooking, Mulbach said.
“He was a really, really good guy,” Mulbach said.
Marcy Lee, Hollister’s academic adviser, said she last saw him the week before Spring Break, when he was getting ready to register for his summer courses.
Lee said she did not know him well because Hollister had just recently enrolled at UF, but, in the short time she knew him, she could tell what a sweet person he was.
“They’re all like children to me, so it’s like I lost a child,” Lee said.
