A University of Massachusetts Journalism student was killed in a car crash early Sunday morning in Royalston. Ashley Beth Softic, 20, of Athol, MA, was a junior at UMass.

According to an article in the Greenfield Recorder, Softic had been driving west on Winchendon Road in Royalston when her car crossed into oncoming traffic in the eastbound lane, went through the guard rail and flipped over before coming to a rest on its roof.

Softic was pronounced dead at the scene after being thrown from the car during the crash. The accident is still under investigation with the Roylaston Police.

According to the Recorder and her co-workers at Rafters, where she was a part-time waitress, Softic was interested in art and traveling. She had also had aspirations of writing children’s books.

“The one thing about her is she was very unique as an individual,” said Winnie Coston, also a waitress at Rafters and Sunderland resident. “She had her own way of doing things, the way she looked, appearance wise, [the way she] presented herself. Her own personal way of coming off.”

“She just was really nice and she was quiet, she wore cool clothes, she had a different kind of style,” said Jen Mulvey, a UMass BDIC Wholistic Health major. “I know sometimes she’d go home on the weekends to be with her family and she would go home to watch her brother play sports.”

Softic, born in Greenfield Dec. 23, 1980, graduated from Athol High School in 1999. In high school she played basketball and field hockey and ran track. After high school she spent her freshman year at Keene State in Keene, N.H.

Softic leaves behind her parents, Enver and Ellen Softic, three brothers, one sister and several aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Her funeral mass will be held at 10 a.m. in Our Lady Immaculate Church, 192 School Street, Orange, MA. There will be a funeral procession from Witty’s Funeral Home, 158 South Main Street, Orange, at 9:30 a.m., followed by the burial in South Cemetery, Orange.

“You have to work as a team and she was definitely a team player. She worked here over the summer when it was quieter,” senior Sarah Bartlett said. “We’re all really sad here, pretty much everyone who works here will be going to her calling hours.”