An NIU student was killed Tuesday morning when her car collided with a semitrailer on Route 72 near Genoa.

Brenda Jo Holst, a 21-year-old junior biology major of Prospect Heights, was driving westbound on Route 72 near Roosevelt Road when her vehicle started to slide on the rain-soaked pavement, DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said.

A semitrailer was heading in the opposite direction at about 7:30 a.m., when Holst slid into the trailer’s rear tires, Scott said.

The impact sent Holst’s vehicle into a spin. Her vehicle then slammed into the side of a second eastbound semitrailer, striking one of its front tires.

Holst was pronounced dead at the scene.

Patrice Dowell, a senior industrial technology major, worked with Holst at the service window of Campus Parking Services.

Dowell said she remembered talking with Holst on walks across campus after work.

“She was very outgoing and funny,” Dowell said. “She was such a good person; she died so young.”

Holst’s roommate, Kim Elrick, a junior dietetics and nutrition major, said Holst was on her way back to DeKalb after visiting friends in New York.

“She always made time for her friends,” Elrick said. “She was always willing to go out. She’d complain when I was just sitting around; she liked going out.”

Elrick met Holst in high school, she said, and had been friends with her ever since. “I never thought she would be gone so soon,” she said. “Her fish is going to miss her. We’re all going to miss her.”