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Prior days' news: By date | Search This week's print issue Back issues: By date | Search April 17, 2007Maxine Shelly TurnerMaxine Shelly Turner, 22, was so bright that in seventh grade she aced algebra, a year ahead of even the brainiest kids in her Vienna, Va., middle school. Despite her intellect, she was still down to earth, says her friend of a decade, Brandon T. Strawn. “She was intelligent but not snooty,” says Mr. Strawn, who ate lunch with her every day when the two were students at James Madison High School, in the suburbs of Washington. “She always had the biggest smile on her face. She was one of the kindest girls I ever knew.” At Virginia Tech, Ms. Turner studied chemical engineering and was scheduled to graduate in May. She was looking forward, she wrote in an online profile, to working at W.L. Gore & Associates, makers of Gore-Tex, a waterproof fabric used in outerwear. She helped found the campus chapter of Alpha Omega Epsilon, a professional and social sorority for female engineering students and alumnae. As the sorority’s professional-life chairwoman, she helped make connections with visiting companies and organized career-building events, like dining-etiquette and résumé workshops. In her profile on the group’s Web site, she wrote, “We formed this sorority as a place for females who had never had female friends, as a chance for them to meet great girls with similar interests.”  Facebook.com Ms. Turner herself had many interests. In high school, she was president of the swing-dance club and played in the orchestra. At Virginia Tech, she volunteered at the local animal shelter and, despite her small size, earned a red belt as part of the university’s tae kwon do club. After her death, Ms. Turner was awarded an honorary black belt, says John Wood, the club’s president and a former boyfriend of Ms. Turner . On a Facebook page dedicated to her memory, a fellow Virginia Tech student, Mike Hickey, recalled that Ms. Turner also made time for friends. Last week, he wrote, she showed up at a local bar to grab dinner with him and a group of friends, even though she had already dressed for a formal dance later that night. Billy Hughes, another high-school friend, posted on the page, “She was one of those people that just made the world happier. You couldn’t be too upset when she was around. She will be forever missed.” Mr. Woods was Ms. Turner’s date at the formal dance the weekend before her death, even though the pair had broken up. He recalled that she was the first one out on the floor and tried to convince her sorority sisters to dance. When they would not, says Mr. Woods, noting that “engineering majors, male and female, are nearly always afraid of dancing, she dragged their dates out and soon everyone was dancing. “She’s one of the most loyal friends I’ve ever had,” Mr. Woods says. “She had this sort of x-ray vision for identifying good people and bad people, and if she found someone good she would stick with him or her. It made me feel really good that after we broke up we remained close friends.” Ms. Turner was Beth Fairchild’s big sister, or mentor, in Alpha Omega Epsilon. In an e-mail message, Ms. Fairchild wrote that she and other members of the sorority attended Tuesday’s convocation memorializing the victims at Virginia Tech as a group. To honor Ms. Turner, who often showed up with new highlights, they dyed bright-red streaks in their hair, or colored their tips, to “personally show how much we’ll miss Max’s fun and eclectic personality,” she says. —Karin Fischer Posted on Tuesday April 17, 2007 | Permalink | |