On a perfectly ordinary Thursday afternoon, three friends’ paths converged after a long day of meetings in the parking lot outside Schar; none of them knew it would be the last time two of them saw the third alive.

“The day that she died… She was walking down the Academic Corridor,” said Tom Kemp, a close friend of the late Dr. June Patton.

Through the dirty lenses of his glasses, he squinted into the bright summer sun when he saw her. The resulting visual effect was like an illusion.

“I said, ‘June, you’re glowing!'” he recalled. “She said, ‘Glowing? I haven’t heard a compliment like that in years!'”

“She was just so full of life and ready to take on the semester,” Kemp added.

Patton and Kemp, the university’s director of online learning, exchanged their “traditional bear hug” before continuing on their separate ways.

Patton was driving home that afternoon when she was involved in a three-vehicle crash in Jackson Township. According to police reports, her vehicle went left of center, striking a motorcycle and a third vehicle. Patton was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

Kemp said the news was shocking after just seeing her that afternoon.

“First it was disbelief, and then it was crushing heartache,” Kemp said.

Nursing professor Dr. Jackie Owens, Patton’s close friend and colleague, echoed Kemp’s sentiment.

“There hasn’t been a day yet that I haven’t cried and that I haven’t missed her,” she said. “She meant a lot to me.”

Owens, who was walking with Patton when they saw Kemp that afternoon, added that it brought her solace to have the chance to say goodbye in a normal way.

It may have been awhile since Patton had been told she glowed, but her family and friends felt her warmth and brilliance on a daily basis.

“She had a wonderful sense of humor, so we laughed a lot,” Owens said. She was Patton’s student, colleague and dear friend for more than 10 years. The two women were like the “Ya Ya Sisterhood,” Kemp said. Owens added that they often finished each others’ sentences.

Patton was Owens’ professor when Owens, a registered nurse since 1980, began studying for her bachelor’s of science in nursing at AU in 1997.

Owens was so impressed with Patton that she nominated her for a Mentor Award from AU in 2001, which she won, and a Nursing Excellence Award from NurseWeek in 2002, which she also won.

“She would go beyond what she had to do for a class,” Owens said. “She let you perform and do things at that next level, even if that made more work for her as a teacher.”

“I wouldn’t have a Ph.D. if it wasn’t for her,” Owens added.

“She helped us see things that we didn’t know were a possibility and helped us see ourselves doing them…[That] helped us become better nurses, and ultimately, helped better health care.”

Patton also believed in challenging her colleagues and students alike.

“When you saw June walk in the door, you knew you were going to be challenged in the most positive way…to help her produce her goals,” Kemp said.

Leading her students and the campus as a whole to a better future was a key part of Patton’s life. Kemp and Patton worked closely together on the Alternative Instructional Delivery Coordinating Council for several years. The purpose of the group was to manage distance learning technology and online courses for the university.

Patton studied Quality Matters, a program designed to help organize online courses and set up standards for quality practices in the online classroom, on her own before pairing up with Kemp to implement the program at AU.

“She became my partner in crime,” Kemp said. “She was always right there behind me, backing me up. She gave me the confidence to move technology forward despite the fact that it would be difficult to implement.”

He also valued Patton’s input and guidance.

“Having somebody that you admire, having somebody who was warm and friendly, and who you could confide in when you had concerns about going forward, who would give you an objective opinion and who had years of experience…that was wonderful,” he said.

In addition to being actively and passionately involved in the university, Patton was committed to her community and her family. With two children and 11 grandchildren, her family was a primary source of joy in her life, Owens said.

The picture frame on her now vacant desk says it all: “Grandchildren are the precious flowers of a long life.”

Patton’s husband, Rev. Doug Patton, was a pastor at their church in North Canton. Rev. Patton retired recently, the sad irony of which is that he’ll never get to enjoy his retirement with his wife.

Patton was loved by her family, friends and colleagues alike, but now they’re all left to move on without her.

“We’re all just trying to take the things that we know were important to her and carry them on,” Owens said.

“She’ll never get to see me in my robes,” Owens said, lamenting the fact that Patton would not be able to see her receive the Ph.D. Patton encouraged her to earn.

Patton may no longer be teaching at Ashland University, but her legacy lives on in the hearts of every student and teacher she touched.

“When I think of all the good things that make up AU, I will always think of June Patton as being the face of the institution itself,” Kemp said. “June embodied everything that was good about Ashland University.”

Owens agreed, noting that Patton was the model of “Accent on the Individual.”

Her face may not be on a banner, but for her friends and colleagues, June Patton was Ashland.