Kyra Willner's friends remember her for her spontaneity and love of travel.
Kyra Willner, an Ohio University senior studying commercial photography in the School of Visual Communication, died Wednesday in a car crash while traveling in New Mexico. She was 21.
Her friends, Paige Walters, a graduate student at OU, and Ally Valeda-Maiden, an undecided sophomore, were also in the car and survived the crash.
Willner, who's from Hudson, Ohio, worked as a teaching assistant for the Athens Photographic Project, a nonprofit that offers artistic instruction to people living with mental illnesses.
Until last month, she worked as the Director of Multimedia and Photography for the Ralph and Luci Schey Sales Center at OU. She also worked at Bagel Street Deli on Court Street.
Willner’s photos have appeared in The Post.
“The amount of lives that Kyra touched, it really is amazing,” Anika Willner, her sister, said. “I don’t know if in my entire life I’ll ever touch that many people.”
Anika, 25, said she and her sister both shared a love of photography. Their father gave Willner her first camera — his old Minolta SR-T 101 from the ‘70s — when Willner was about 15. She had used it for years.
“I think (her death) will definitely push me to get back into photography and keep shooting for her … to keep exploring the world and keep an open mindedness and a sensitivity to everything that’s going on around me,” Anika said.
Olivia Wallace, a former Post photographer and Willner’s roommate, met Willner their freshman year. The two had an “immediate chemistry” but it took a while for them to develop a friendship because they were mutually outspoken and strong-willed, she said.
“She had a lot of energy and it would stress her out sometimes,” Wallace, a senior studying visual anthropology said. “But she would fill you up with that energy too. It was just easy to be positive minded with her. Even when she was stressed, she would always be doing something productive.”
Willner was spontaneous and loved to travel — two characteristics that contributed to her photography. It was when she traveled through places such Asia and Colorado, or doing multimedia for a permaculture farm in Thailand, that she felt most connected to her photography, Wallace said.
“She just really loves to photograph when she’s moving around and traveling,” she said. “And that’s when she feels like her best self because you’re so open to people and the world.”
That love of travel arose from a passion for human connection, Anika said.
“Kyra was such a gentle, sensitive girl,” Anika said. “She understood about life and compassion. … She was so committed to telling the stories of people, especially people that were marginalized.”
Even her trip to New Mexico was an example of her free-spirited nature.
“I don’t even think she had a final destination in mind,” Wallace said.
Josh Birnbaum, a lecturer in the School of Visual Communication, said Willner met with him in order to take one of his photojournalism courses her sophomore year, which is uncommon for a commercial photography student.
“I sat down with her and told her I would hold her to the same standard as the other students,” he said. “She ended up doing better than a lot of the photojournalism students.”
Since then, Birnbaum met with her on several occasions when she needed academic or career advice.
“If you met her, you would see that she’s a very expressive person,” he said. “She makes connections between the project that she’s doing in her life and those around her that she cares about. … (She would) talk about her desire to make meaningful images that changed the world that changed things.”
But photography only made up a fraction of Willner’s passions. She made close friends during her time working at Bagel Street Deli, which is where she met her boyfriend of three years, Jru Lloyd, 24. She had an appointment for next month to get a special “mountain” tattoo — a tradition among Bagel Street employees.
Lloyd, a 2014 OU graduate, said now he plans on getting a similar tattoo in her honor.
Willner avidly wrote poetry and music, and played guitar. She wrote songs with Lloyd, who has a band in Buffalo, New York.
“Her words are so so inquisitive and accurate,” he said. “She was connected to something higher than what most people are. She had an incredible intuition.”
Wallace said she and her other roommates plan to go through Willner’s collection of pictures in the hopes of making an exhibition or book celebrating her work.
Anika said the School of Visual Communication is working with the family to start a scholarship fund and memorial in her honor. A funeral will be held in Florida, where her parents plan on retiring.
“We’re all very hurt,” Birnbaum said. “Beyond that, I hope we can come together as a school and recall what she brought to our community and celebrate and take that into the rest of our lives.”
In a recent “student spotlight” released by the School of Visual Communication, Willner shared what she thought about when she took photographs.
“Shoot images that are meaningful and have a purpose,” she said. “Use photography as a medium to make an impact, whether it is strong or subtle. Make sure it serves a purpose.”
@wtperkins
wp198712@ohio.edu
