Caitlin Hammaren

As a junior at Minisink Valley High School in upstate New York, Caitlin Hammaren won an excellence award -- and to those around her it was clear why.

She rode horses, played violin, excelled at tennis and led the school's chorus. She was one of a small group of students selected in her junior year to attend a weeklong mock-government program at a nearby college for young women with records of academic achievement.

And to top it all off, she was a member of the school's honor society.

"She was just one of the most outstanding young individuals that I've had the privilege of working with in my 31 years as an educator," John P. Latini, the principal of Minisink Valley High School, where Ms. Hammaren graduated in 2005, told The Associated Press. "Caitlin was a leader among our students."

An only child and native of Westtown, N.Y., Ms. Hammaren, 19, was among the students who were shot and killed at Norris Hall on Monday. According to friends, she was majoring in international studies and French, and was also involved in a number of campus organizations, including her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma.

Ms. Hammaren and several of her sorority sisters were scheduled to take part in a walk this Friday -- the Relay for Life, sponsored by the American Cancer Society -- to raise money for cancer research and survivors. On a Web site that had been set up to help Ms. Hammaren and her sisters raise support for the walk, donations in her name trickled in throughout the day.

On another Web site created in Ms. Hammaren's memory, one Virginia Tech student, identified as Katrina Broas, posted a note that said: "This tragedy couldn't have happened to a nicer girl. You always put smiles on everyone's face, you were the one who wasn't afraid what everyone else thought, and you would go out of your way to say Hi! You are missed dearly, you have touched the lives of anyone you ever met."