CLARENCE, N.Y. (AP) — The first female New York trooper to die while on duty was remembered Tuesday for her grace, humor and professionalism as family, friends and law enforcement officers gathered for her funeral.

A long procession of police cruisers escorted the hearse carrying Jill Mattice to the Eastern Hills Wesleyan Church in Clarence, about 20 miles northeast of Buffalo. Pipers played and two long ranks of somber, gray-uniformed fellow troopers saluted as an honor guard wheeled in her flag-draped casket.

It took mourners almost a half hour to file into the church hall, where Gov. David Paterson said in his eulogy that children in the schools where Mattice was assigned as a resource officer “adored her because of her bubbly personality.”

Police say the 31-year-old trooper was driving a cruiser back to the Oneonta barracks from her shift at a central New York school on Wednesday when she apparently drifted into the oncoming lane and collided with a tractor-trailer. The accident remains under investigation.