If you knew Emily Orr, you loved her, Hartselle High students said.

"She was a popular student, a very respectable young lady," Hartselle High Principal Jerry Reeves said.

Orr, 16, and passenger Kelly Stewart, 17, died Wednesday in a single-vehicle wreck three miles northeast of Falkville on Cedar Cove Road South at about 9:15 p.m. Orr was wearing a seat belt, but Stewart was not, troopers said.

Orr apparently lost control of her vehicle and hit a tree. They died at the scene, troopers said. A witness at the scene said it was one of the worst accidents he had ever seen. Orr's vehicle wrapped around a tree, witnesses said.

"What I wouldn't give to hear my little girl sing again," said Chris Orr, an employee with the city of Hartselle. "She loved to sing. She was singing all the time. She had a beautiful voice. She started singing in church when she was 4 or 5."

The Stewart family could not be reached.

Emily Orr was a member of the Hartselle High Chorus and track team and worked as a high school office aide. Chris Orr said his daughter would sing anywhere she could.

"She spent a lot of time at Steele's Karaoke," he said. "She talked about being a veterinarian, but in her heart of hearts, she wanted to be a singer."

"She was his world, Chris Orr's supervisor, Street Department Superintendent Byron Turney, said. "He worshipped the ground she walked on. He was all the time talking about her. You could tell his world revolved around his daughter."

Reeves said Stewart moved to Hartselle from Florida less than a year ago. She enrolled at Hartselle High, but withdrew in September.

"Kelly hadn't lived in Hartselle long," Chris Orr said. "She hit it off with my daughter and they were real good friends."

Angie Orr said Stewart was a senior taking online courses.

"I don't know how long she had been in Hartselle, but she and our daughter became fast friends," Angie said.

The Orrs said troopers told them that speed was a contributing factor in the accident.

"She was our only child," an emotional Chris Orr said. "She was full of life. She loved life and her friends. She was a daddy's girl. She always was."

Worked at steak house

Emily] Orr worked the salad bar at OhBryan's Steak House in Hartselle.

Chris and Angie Orr said they want teenagers to learn from their daughter's death.

"It hadn't been long ago that Emily called and told me about a friend dying in an accident," Angie said. "Teenagers think they are invincible. They need to slow down and put their seatbelts on."

The mood was somber at Hartselle High Thursday morning. Reeves said he activated the school system's counseling plan. Ministers, Hospice and counselors were on campus to assist students.

"The students were very sad this morning," Reeves said. "We have a plan in place to help them. You hate when you have to activate it, but unfortunately we have to sometime.

"We want to express out sympathy to the families and let them know that we will do anything we can to assist them."