Pam Downs

ARC Andy Hoover Memorial
Andy Hoover was a technical theatre major at ARC. At 24, he was sitting in the back seat of a 1986 Toyota driven by another ARC theatre student, Jenna Faeth. The two theatre students, along with Hoover’s girlfriend and another friend, had been heading back from a theatre festival at California State University, Los Angeles. Though tired, they were eager to return to school for a Sunday evening rehearsal of the play Kimchee and Chitlins," said Johnny Sittisin, who, along with Hoover’s girlfriend, Brittany Baskerville, was injured in the crash. Both Andy and Jenna were killed when the car drifted off Highway 99 near Madera, then overturned several times. Friends described Hoover as a funny, brilliant, deeply generous young man who never stopped talking for long. Andy’s mother, Pam Downs is a long-time theatre professor at American River College. This scholarship was established in Andy’s memory from many generous students, faculty and people in the community touched by this tragedy."