Maxine Turner will be remembered by her friends as one of the most kind, gentle and beautiful souls to have ever walked the campus of Virginia Tech. "She was the greatest person ever," said Michelle Vrikkis, Turner's roommate of four years told the Journal Gazette.
Max, as friends affectionately called her, was anything but average. She received a 1500 on her SAT, which included a perfect 800 in math, wrote the Star Tribune. "I did pretty good." That is all Turner's mother recalls as her humble response to her terrific performance.
Turner gave up her time and frequently volunteered at the local animal shelter. She helped found the Virginia Tech chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, the national sorority for women in engineering. She was working towards a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and she was already a master of the Zelda video games.
Turner had a sense of humor and a hrefreshing friendliness that made her unforgettable to people she met. "I startle easily, and she knew that, so her favorite way to get me to move was to grab (me)," recalled Robin May, another of Turner's roommates. "I would jump across the room," May told the Rappahannock Times.
Jason Allen, a high school friend recalls, "To me, Maxine was one of the few people in high school that had no enemies. She was always helpful ... she used to chew me out if I started slacking off on homework. Whenever someone said 'Hi' to her, she always had a smile, and you knew it was genuine."
An online memorial on The New York Times' website stores memories that friends and families have of Turner.
"Now I know what they mean when they say someone was 'a sweetheart.' … No one ever had a sweeter heart than Maxine. Maxine's beauty is evident from the picture, but her inner beauty was greater," wrote Suzanne Gorey — the mother of a childhood friend.
Turner will also be remembered as a dancer. She was a member of the swing dance club in high school and was deemed the title "Vice President of Everything." "Maxine's infectious enthusiasm for the club was often overwhelming enough to encourage those shy wallflowers (I am hreferring to the boys) to come out and learn to swing dance. And in a pinch Maxine could do the male partner dance lead," remembers Martin Romeo the sponsor of the Madison Swing Club.
Her friends think that the only thing brighter than Max's smile and personality was her future. Maxine was only one month away from receiving her honors degree in chemical engineering. She will still receive that degree, but not in a way anyone had planned. On her Facebook profile she announced plans to work for W.L. Gore & Associates; a leading manufacturer of thousands of advanced technology products for the electronics, industrial, fabrics and medical markets. In the description field she wrote: "not sure what I'll be doing yet, but they are AWESOME (for those who don't know, they make Gore-Tex)."
Max would have taken her energy into that company and continued toward excellence. "There are students that have kind of a twinkle in their eye, she was one of them. She was a bright young woman with a lot of potential," Jane Gardener, who was involved in the hiring of Maxine, told The Roanoke Times.
Turner's father told CBS News that Max was determined to be a Hokie. "We tried to convince her to go elsewhere. When you get accepted to Johns Hopkins, it's a very prestigious school," he said. "But no, she wanted to go to Virginia Tech."
Turner brought with her an attitude and a personality to Tech that many students strive for.
A scholarship fund has been set-up in Maxine's honor. All donations can be sent to:
Alpha Omega Epsilon National Foundation, Inc.
PO Box 3150
Brunswick, GA 31521
(Memo Line: Maxine Turner Fund)
