PERRY COUNTY, Tenn. ( WSMV /Gray News) - A community in Tennessee is remembering the life of a high school senior, who died while on his way to pick up his girlfriend for church.

Officials said 17-year-old Everett Bates was killed in a crash along Highway 412, near Linden, Tennessee, just before 9 a.m. Sunday.

Bates was driving to pick up his girlfriend for church when his mother, Kassie Clanton, said he fell asleep behind the wheel.

Bates had been out late at a fair Saturday night, but Clanton said he insisted on still going to church.

“And so he was going to go pick up Bella, and they were going to church,” she said. “And he didn’t make it to pick her up.”

Clanton said she didn’t know how to react when Bates’ grandmother called to tell her about the crash.

“Soul-crushing,” she sa

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