Friends and family remember Lanter’s life

Becca Lanter will be remembered for her compassionate heart, her smile and her fun-loving personality.

A memorial in honor of Lanter took place Sunday at the Student Recreational Services Center, where Lanter worked.

Susie Mahoney, assistant director of informal sports and equipment operations, helped organize the event with assistance from Lanter’s best friend, Dylan Hollenberg, and roommates Cheyanne Milner and Alyssa Kettler.
 
“She was close with a lot of student employees,” Mahoney said. “She was fun and energetic and had a hallmark personality. She connected with a lot of people.”

For the memorial, her friends helped compile a slideshow of pictures showing Lanter making funny faces and posing with her friends.

Friends, co-workers and family had a chance to share their memories of Lanter, and many told humorous anecdotes.

It was clear her workplace had become another home.

“She was a member of our Sports Rec family,” said one of Lanter’s bosses, Emily Ward.

Whitney King had similar shifts with Lanter and used the “radio in ways you are not supposed to.”

King said she would frequently have to calm down rowdy men who were getting into fights and would page Lanter for backup.

“Becca would come there, and I would ask her the game plan,” King said. “And she would say, ‘We’re both very small and very pretty, but we dominate this gym, and we are the ones that should be in charge.’ She’s amazing.”

J’Koi Hailstock, one of her co-workers, said that he was always astounded by how much Lanter could talk and how she always listened to — and truly cared about — her customers.

“Becca was always serving the participants,” Halistock said. “If someone was having a bad day, she would listen to all of their problems. I couldn’t tell her to stop talking to the participants because she was not talking about her life — they were talking to her about their life.”

Lanter went above and beyond her day-to-day required tasks. She became friends with the people she served.

“Becca would see us when we were half-beat to hell and she would always say hi,” IU swim team member Titus Knight said. “Seeing Becca’s smiling face would pick us all up. ... As a team, we will miss her.” 

Hollenberg wrote and read a personal document he had written for Lanter titled “Becca Lanter — Hurts So Good.”

“So what is it about this girl that was so special?” he wrote. “Was it her booming laugh? The laugh that could turn every head in the room from the way her gasps echoed? Or was it the way she could make the people she was with extremely uncomfortable by ACTUALLY doing the things everyone was thinking but was afraid to do?”

Paul Young, one of Lanter’s best friends at IU, sang a song he wrote for the memorial while playing his guitar.

“But I’m not ready to give up my favorite girl,” he sang. “Who’s gonna be there when I need a smile? Who’s gonna push me to go that extra mile?”

During the memorial, a video excerpt was shown of Lanter performing “A Story of Reality-x3,” a poem she performed at an Open Mic Night at BuffaLouie’s. While Lanter performed, she had attitude one might not expect from a small-town girl.

Her roommates and Emma Markley, Lanter’s best friend since they were 10, read her eleven-page poem at the memorial.

“They think I am so sweet, so nice, have a car, apartment, a pretty good life. Just a small-town girl who always does right. Who’s naive and has never seen the struggle of life? Yeah right!”

During her spoken-word performance, Lanter shared her personal thoughts, stories
and struggles.

“Prove everyone wrong, who expected me to fall. I graduated fourth in my class, it wasn’t easy — I busted my ass. ... I feel I am the lucky, yes lucky! I haven’t been deprived, because now put me through ANYTHING and I’ll survive. My struggles are not my weaknesses — they are my strength. My hard times I will forever thank.”

From personal anecdotes of her friends and family, Lanter seemed to stay true to the belief that nothing was as bad as it seemed.

While attempting to camp out for a Dave Matthews Band concert, Lanter kept a positive attitude though she and her friends had to walk for miles carrying many materials. While her friends complained, Lanter kept everything more upbeat by telling them how much fun they would have.

“Whenever we spent any time together, it was awesome,” Markley said. “It couldn’t be any better. That’s what she would have said.”

Although the camping trip and walk was difficult, Markley and Lanter’s good friend Sarah Smith would do it all over again, tenfold, to get their friend back.
“I would carry a house now if I had to,” Markley said.