This was sent to me by a man named Phil awhile back:

I met Dana at John A. Sutter Jr. High. We attended from 1977 - 1979,
although we did not see much of her in school during the year of 1979
due to her filming of "Diff'rent Strokes". Dana and her mother, Kay,
founded and hosted a girls club called "TheCupids". This is where
myself and others in school became friends with Dana and her mother.
There was a group of about twenty four junior high students who all
hung out together. We all took great pride in having one of our
friends as a celebrity, and when "Diff'rent Strokes" came out we were
thrilled for her. Her mother, Kay, was just as much a friend to us as
Dana; we held many partys at her house. They even kept a Christmas
tree up for a whole year because Kay loved Christmas. I can honestly
tell you that all the years of knowing Dana I can not remember a
time when she was ever cross or upset with any of us. This would be
the primary reason she was voted "Most Lovable" in junior high. In my
opinion junior high was probably one of the happiest times of Dana's
life since she had many new friends and her career was just starting
to peak. I remember the times she would ask us to write letters to
the studio so her "Kimberly" character would receive more air time.
Dana and her mother have played a big part of my teenage year
memories. I was even fortunate to have kissed her once during an
innocent game of spin the bottle!

Once the "Diff'rent Strokes" series took off we rarely saw Dana and
she stopped attending public school in 1979. I would occasionally run
into friends who saw her but eventually we all lost touch with one
another and only heard about Dana in the media. I felt awful years
later when I heard that she had held up a Dry Cleaners in Las Vegas.
I knew then she was headed for big trouble. I remember telling my
wife that I wished I could somehow contact her. Dana was always used
to being the center of attention, and when the focus was not on her
she did things to draw attention. I actually cried when I heard of
her death and wondered why she never contacted any of us when her
troubles began; we were all so close. Remember, she stopped attending
public school in 1979, so we were the only school friends she had,
any one of us would have helped her. I was looking through my old
school books, and Dana came to mind, so I thought I would look for a
web site of her. When I saw her son Tyler's name I felt compelled to
give some additional information on his mother's teen years that he
may not have heard.

Warmest Regards,
Phil

(note: I've added the picture to the Yahoo Photos section for this
group.)