Deborah Pearsall, a 2011 editing intern at the St. Petersburg Times, died Saturday. She was a senior at Lehigh University, due to graduate this May.

John Dillon, director of the editing residency at Penn State University shared vivid memories of her.

“Debbie was a true live wire in the Dow Jones class last June and contributed greatly to the energy and camaraderie of the group. She was usually the first to arrive in our classroom each morning and was always prepared. She was independent-minded and questioning — great qualities for an editor — but was a good teammate when teamwork was called for.”

Associate Dean Marie Hardin, who made the call to offer Debbie the DJNF internship, had this recollection: “She was eager to accept but had more questions than the average prospect — she wasn’t going to simply say ‘yes.’ That’s one of the clues we had that she would, indeed, be a very good intern: her inquisitive nature.”

The Brown and White newspaper at Lehigh published a tribute here.