A one-vehicle wreck in Lumpkin County has claimed the life of an upcoming senior at Lumpkin County High School.

Daniel Milum, 17, was found dead in his vehicle off Ga. 52 around noon Wednesday after sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of damage on the side of the highway, Lumpkin County Sheriff Stacy Jarrard said.

Milum’s is the first vehicle-related death of a teen in Lumpkin County this year, Jarrard said.

The Georgia State Patrol is investigating the wreck. Jarrard said Milum’s 1991 Chevrolet S-10 likely was traveling west on Ga. 52 before leaving the road. The truck went down an embankment before hitting a tree, Jarrard said.

Jarrard remembered the 17-year-old from teaching him in a D.A.R.E program when Milum was in middle school. Jarrard described Milum as positive and funny and the "all-American teenage boy."

"I don’t know how to describe it," Jarrard said. "I just always enjoyed seeing him around."

By Thursday, Milum’s friends created a Web site in his honor where they posted memories and expressed their condolences to Milum’s family.

There, friends wrote that the 17-year-old with "country boy ways" did not know a stranger and loved to make his friends laugh.

Many of those who posted on the site referred to the teenager as "Mylo."

"No wonder it has been raining today," wrote one friend who called herself Amber Chambers. "Our Sunshine is missing."

The Georgia State Patrol Post responsible for investigating the wreck did not return calls from The Times by press time Thursday.