Friends and family called her an angel even as they struggled to deal with Angela Hotop's sudden death.

The 23-year-old Southeast Missouri State University student from Perryville, Mo., died Tuesday at Saint Francis Medical Center from a fast-acting infection that doctors couldn't pinpoint.

"It is just so unbelievable," said her aunt, Carol Buchheit of Perryville. "Everybody loved Angela. She touched so many lives just with her smile," Buchheit said Wednesday.

"You just hope something like this never happens to anybody else."

Hotop was admitted to the hospital Saturday evening after a day of fever, diarrhea and vomiting.

By Sunday evening she was unconscious, Buchheit recalled.

Doctors concluded she had some infection in her bloodstream, but a battery of tests didn't turn up the cause.

Buchheit said the cause may never be known.

"Somehow she got a bacterial infection. Some sort of toxin got in her bloodstream," she said.

Friends, family, university staff and faculty said Hotop was a smart student.

She was valedictorian of her high school class of 2000 at St. Vincent de Paul High School in Perryville.

She graduated from the university last year with an undergraduate degree in business and a 4.0 grade point average. This spring she was a graduate student at Southeast, working on a master's in business administration degree.

Hotop worked part time writing releases for the university's news bureau and also worked in fund development at Saint Francis Medical Center.

"We are all just stunned," said Ann Hayes, who heads the university's news bureau.

Dr. Jack Sterrett, a management and marketing professor at Southeast, had Hotop in several of his classes and served as her academic adviser when she was an undergraduate.

"She was one of those shining stars you can pick out of a crowd," he said. "She was just exceptional."

Sterrett said Hotop had a bubbly personality. "She always had a smile on her face."

Graduate student Megan Price was a close friend. "It was just a shock," she said of her friend's death. "It was just out of the blue."

Visitation for Hotop will be at Young and Sons Funeral Home in Perryville from 3 to 9 p.m. Friday and from 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Funeral Mass will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Vincent de Paul Church.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123