University of Maryland shooting victim remembered by friends Rane's personality seems captured in his Facebook profile photo: A grinning guy with brown hair and a matching beard at a party, flashing a thumbs-up and jokingly wearing a garish pastel old-lady sweater decorated with cats. He was goofy and funny, always quick with a witty comeback. But his friends said they could always count on him to drop everything to help them with anything. "Stephen was the greatest guy," said Drew Needham, 21, who met Rane at freshman orientation and lived with him during their sophomore and junior years. Stephen was great. That sums him up. He was great. Rane moved to Maryland from Indiana when he was in high school. He graduated in 2009 from Centennial High School in Ellicott City, where a friend said he played the saxophone in the marching band and flourished as a writer. "He was every English teacher's favorite," said Jeanette Santori, 21, who dated Rane in high school and is now a senior at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Although the two broke up after heading to different colleges, Santori said they stayed close. In high school, Rane was very smart, a little shy and always kind., Santori said. He listened to National Public Radio in his car, took dates to bookstores and played strategy games, like War of Warcraft and The Settlers of Catan. He would start passionate debates with his friends and usually win. He loved Indy music and the sound of unusual instruments, like a tin-whistle, bagpipes or accordion. For senior week, Rane and four friends went camping at Cunningham Falls in northern Maryland instead of partaking in the usual parties and beach trips. Just their luck, it rained the entire time and a small lake pooled inside their tent. "We call it "the fateful camping trip,"" Santori said. But it cemented friendship between the five, even as they headed off to five colleges. They kept in touch over Facebook and text message, and hung out during breaks. Rane enrolled at Maryland's flagship campus, where his mother works as a plant pathologist. He got a part-time job at a video game shop near campus. He decided to major in English, and friends say he added linguistics as a second major. He was on track to graduate this spring, they said, and he hoped to teach English overseas. Rane appears to have penned a guest column for the student newspaper in November 2011, explaining the proposed "Stop Online Piracy Act" and urging students to take a stand against it: "Though this law only authorizes censorship on the grounds of copyright infringement and not political or moral views, it is still a step toward the restriction of information that any American should be appalled by."