UNCG student remembered after fatal crash on Mother’s Day trip home

A 21-year-old University of North Carolina at Greensboro student who was riding home with her mother for Mother’s Day weekend died in a May 8 crash on Interstate 85 North in Durham County, turning a family trip into a loss now felt in Greensboro as well as Maryland.

Kelis Gorham and her mother, Denise Crawford, 61, both of Maryland, were killed around 1:20 p.m. near Red Mill Road, past Exit 183, after a black Honda Civic rear-ended a gray Chevrolet, according to the North Carolina State Highway Patrol. The Chevrolet went off the road and struck a tree. The Chevrolet driver, Bonita Green, 60, of Oxford, was not injured.

Sam Gorham said his daughter would have turned 22 on June 8. He remembered her as his baby girl, a detail that underscored how quickly a routine holiday drive became a family tragedy.

Gorham studied information systems and cybersecurity at UNCG, a path that tied her to one of Greensboro’s most visible universities and to a campus community that has already had to absorb her death. Friends and sorority sisters in Sigma Gamma Rho remembered her as determined, kind and welcoming, and as someone whose smile could light up a room.

A memorial fundraiser described Gorham as a proud graduate of High Point High School and a spring 2026 initiate of the Omicron Eta Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated. It also said she was preparing to enter her final year of college in the fall, a detail that makes the loss feel especially stark: she was close to finishing the degree she had built her college life around.

The crash also briefly disrupted one of the region’s busiest travel arteries. ABC11 reported that the right lane of I-85 reopened around 4:20 p.m., hours after the wreck near Red Mill Road.

For Guilford County, the story lands close to home because UNCG is not just another campus. It is a central part of Greensboro’s daily life, and when one of its students dies on a nearby interstate, the loss reaches classrooms, student organizations and the wider community that had watched Gorham work toward her future.