Tina was traveling westbound on I-70 heading to work in Grand Junction, Colorado on the morning on January 15, 2008. She saw a potentially serious accident with a pickup and trailer ending up in the median. Stopping to render assistance, she was struck and killed by another vehicle.

Tina was 28 years old, she just completed college a month earlier, earning three degrees. She and her husband Michael Soffel had a storybook wedding the previous May at the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. To celebrate finishing college, she bought herself a new car. She and Michael were talking about having children and looking to move to a larger house. 

Passionate for life and full of dreams, Tina lived a full and busy life. Even though she worked full time while attending college, she found time to get involved in the community. She actively participated in the American Cancer Society relay for life, (in 2001 she put her school on hold and went to California where she cared for her mother who died of cancer in 2003). She volunteered for search parties looking for a missing mother in Grand Junction and was always there for friends and family.

A brilliant and beautiful young woman, her future was full of promise. And then in an instant of brutal insanity, she was taken from us. Our lives will never be the same without her. Nothing we can do will change that, but we can try to carry out some of the things she aspired to do.

So we will work toward accomplishing some of her goals with the help of friends, family, and the community.