To those who knew her, there was one quality of Rebecca Payne’s that stood out more than the others on her long list of good qualities: her smile.
“She could see the good in everything. She just had a radiant smile,” said Jess Meiley, a senior athletic training major and a friend of Payne since their freshman year. “Looking through all the pictures, [in] 99 percent of them, she had a smile on her face. She was just a really good person and saw the good in all situations.”
Sophomore Kristi Kehoe, a women’s hockey player who Payne mentored in the athletic training program, said Payne’s energy made all types of situations enjoyable.
“There’s always a lot of people that you see smiling a lot, but when Becca was smiling, you could just tell that she enjoyed herself. She was happy to be where she was,” Kehoe said. “Seeing her with that smile, especially when we started 6 a.m. practices
