Approximately 40 Macalester students, staff and faculty gathered in Weyerhaeuser Chapel on Tuesday to pay tribute to the life of Katherine Boyer ’06.

Boyer, who went by Katie, was a native of Chapel Hill, NC. She suffered from a serious blood disorder and died unexpectedly due to complications from the disease on Sept. 4.

Boyer was an Asian Studies major with an interest in Japanese language and culture. She planned to live in the Japan House this fall and to study abroad in Tokyo in the spring. She studied Tae-Kwan-Do for 13 years, had a passion for climbing trees and worked in the art department as a student employee.

At the memorial service, several of Boyer’s friends, her advisor Associate Professor of Japanese Satoko Suzuki, Dean of Students Laurie Hamre and Chaplain Lucy-Forster Smith spoke.

The speakers remembered Boyer as funny, creative and wise beyond her years.

“Katie was one of those people you just loved.” Jessica Zamora ’06 said. “[She] has always been a person who was able to relate to everyone. She was very wise and I respected everything she did.”

“She brought so much to everyone,” Claire Flaxman ’06 said. “For some reason we bonded right away. She was a quiet southern belle and I was a loud northerner. By the end of freshman year, we were finishing each others sentences.”

According to Randy Thomas ’06 Boyer’s funeral in North Carolina was standing room only. He said that many people were looking into the meeting house in which the funeral was held from windows outside and that many others stood in the hallway of the facility.

Associate Chaplain Eily Marlow read an e-mail from Sheenae Kim ’06, who was Boyer’s best friend at Macalester, praising Boyer for her kindness and compassion. Kim was unable to attend the service because she is currently studying abroad in Korea. Kim and Boyer had been roommates for two years and planned to live together when they both returned from studying abroad.

“I can’t imagine Macalester without her,” Kim said in her e-mail. “I honestly don’t know if I want to go back without her there. Although she has only been in our lives for two years, she has changed me. She has changed all of us and that will stay with us for the rest of ourlives.”

Suzuki remembered Boyer as a model student who was enthusiastic about the study of Japanese.

“She was the perfect student, very well prepared and actively involved in what we were doing. Even though she presented herself as a quiet person, she had a real passion for the study of Japanese.”

Hamre described Boyer’s application to Macalester as creative. She began her admissions essay with the words “choose me,” something Hamre said that she had never seen before.

“She came here to increase her wisdom, learn more and to find people who would be in her heart for the rest of her life,” Hamre said. “She found that.”

Boyer’s friends are planning to plant a tree in her honor on campus.

“She loved to climb trees,” Ryan Kordsmeier ’06 said. “We thought a tree would be the best way to make a lasting tribute to her.”

The group has not yet decided on a type of tree or a location in which to plant it.