He and the others in the car were students at Pacific Union College, a small liberal arts school 70 miles north of San Francisco. They had been playing basketball on campus, then were going to get a snack when California Highway Patrol said the driver lost control of their black Honda Civic, crossed the center line into on-coming traffic and collided with a pick-up.

"It was a lot of crying, a lot of sadness," said PUC student Anthony Lee.

As friends in Napa Valley grieve, Nishikawa's former advisor says his high school classmates are in shock. Nenny Safotu sponsored Nishikawa's class at Hawaiian Mission Academy in Makiki. His 2004 class was a tight-knit group of 30 students.

"It hurt a lot," said Safotu, "and I haven't had a chance to talk to the rest of his classmates that are here, but I know they are going through a lot right now."

Nishikawa was on the school's basketball team, he liked to goof around. But Safotu remembers him most for his musical talents.

"He likes to play guitar and he likes to play back-up for friends that sing for him. He comes from a musically talented family."

Nishikawa also loved to surf. He spent the past three summers as a surf instructor at the Hawaiian Fire Surf School.

"A lot of people say about other people he was one of a kind but he really is," said surf instructor Ryan Miller. "He definitely was one-of-a-kind kind of guy."

"You just think about what a good guy he was," said John Pregill, owner of Hawaiian Fire Surf Shop. "I mean he gave, constantly gave and that's where the biggest loss is."

---