'This little angel dropped in the middle of N.J.'

Sally Johnston has been chaperoning - perhaps mother-henning is a better way to put it - Miss New Jerseys for 50 years.

Some of the 50 or 60 young women she has taken under her wing have become like daughters to this 78-year-old mother of three daughters of her own. Many have become good friends. Only one, says Johnston, she hopes not to see again.

But a special few, like Cara McCollum, Miss New Jersey 2013, have transcended all those boundaries to become "like an angel" in Johnston's life.

"She's just quite an extraordinary young girl . . . so all this is just so heart-wrenching," Johnston, executive director of the Miss New Jersey Pageant, said of McCollum.

McCollum, 24, of Margate, who represented the Garden State in the 2014 Miss America Pageant, was critically injured Monday night in a one-car accident on Route 55 in Pittsgrove Township, Salem County. The 2015 Princeton University graduate and Arkansas native had been working on the anchor desk of an upstart television news broadcast out of Millville, SNJ Today, for about six months.

Her 2014 Ford Mustang veered off the northbound lanes of the highway, struck a tree, spun, and hit two more trees before ending up in a ditch near a small creek called Scotland Run at Mile Marker 38.4.

State police said icy, wet road conditions were a factor in the accident, which occurred just before 7 p.m. McCollum, the only person in the car, was not wearing a seat belt, but the driver's side air bag deployed, according to the accident report.

She was taken to Cooper University Hospital, where she was listed in critical condition with massive head injuries. She underwent lengthy brain surgery Tuesday, according to friends.

While her family requested Wednesday that no further information about McCollum's condition be made public, friends say there has been a round-the-clock vigil at the hospital that includes only her immediate family members and her boyfriend, Keith Jones, an NBC10 news anchor. He could not be reached for comment.

Jones - among a cadre of friends and strangers who have taken to social media since the accident to request prayers for McCollum - posted on his Twitter account on Thursday a declaration about his feelings for the young woman. Calling her "Beshe," Jones said McCollum is "the light of my life, the greatest thing to ever walk into it, my everything."

"I haven't left her bedside since she arrived at the hospital. We're inseparable," Jones wrote. "One year and 8-months of absolute love and bliss."

On Friday, Johnston said the kind of devotion for McCollum reflected in Jones' posting is inspired by the young woman because of her "giving, loving spirit."

"He is such a man . . . an unusually sensitive guy that I knew from the beginning really cares about Cara," Johnston said, recalling that soon after the couple began dating, the former chaperone received a text message from Jones inviting her to a birthday party he was hosting for McCollum.

"When you spend three or four hours a day, several days a week, in a car with someone, you get to know someone pretty well. And one of the things I know about Cara is how much she loves eating at Taco Bell," Johnston said. "It was always, always, Taco Bell that she wanted to go to. So, for her birthday, Keith planned a big party for her at Taco Bell. He didn't necessarily think it was the best place to throw her a party, but he knew that she would love it. And she did. . . . It was just really funny."

Johnston said one of the things that impressed her about McCollum when she met her was her devotion to her platform, a charity called Birthday Book Project, that she founded in 2008 when she was in high school in Arkansas. To date, the project has given more than 25,000 books to children in New Jersey and Arkansas, and the charity recently began working with McDonald's to provide books as the prize in Happy Meals.

"When she first got to Princeton, she had a hard time getting into classrooms to hand out the books, so I think she was inspired to get involved with pageants so that she would have a platform here for continuing her mission with the Birthday Book Project," Johnston said.

But Johnston said it was in the lighter moments of McCollum's yearlong reign as Miss New Jersey and afterward that the two women bonded.

"She just has one of those quirky sense of humors that she makes everything fun even if it's not. . . . She looks for the bright side in everything," Johnston said. "And that giving, loving spirit is what makes her such a joy to be around."

Johnston recalled a moment when McCollum first became Miss New Jersey. She didn't have her own car and had borrowed one from a friend to make her rounds.

"We were on the turnpike, and we went through the E-ZPass lane, and I noticed that she didn't have one of those little E-ZPass boxes on the windshield, so I asked her about it, and she just said, 'Well, you know I don't carry any money and they won't take my debit card, so I just figure they will send me a bill for the toll,' " Johnston recalled. "And I'm like, 'Cara, that's not how it works,' and she's like, 'Well, we don't have E-ZPass in Arkansas.' She was like this little angel dropped in the middle of New Jersey with a crown on her head. We all have gotten so used to her humor. . . . She's just really funny."

Johnston choked back tears when she talked about McCollum. She posted on her Facebook page earlier in the week that "Cara is holding on" but needs "all the miracle prayer warriors that are out there to keep praying and send positive vibes."

"We've all been praying and asking for a miracle. . . . and I've seen a few miracles in my life," Johnston said. "So I'm just hanging onto the fact that miracles do happen and that one will happen for Cara."

609-652-8382 jurgo@phillynews.com @JacquelineUrgo