Theater Student Eulogized

The family and friends of Bronwyn Dodson, who was struck and killed by a truck last week, gathered Sunday to say farewell to the Fullerton College theater student the way she would have liked most--on a stage and among the company of performers.

About 200 people, most of them students, went to the campus theater arts building for the special memorial service, which included songs, eulogies and poetry readings. Dodson, who was killed while riding her bike toward campus on Lemon Street, was 22.

Theater arts department chairman Robert Jensen said the service was a follow-up to an impromptu memorial shortly after the accident, when Dobson’s friends came together after hearing the news of her death. He said the outpouring of emotion may seem extraordinary, but Dodson was an extraordinary person.

“I would grieve for any of our students, but this death--this death has caused a tremendous shuddering in the building,” Jensen said.

Dodson, who had worked in summer stock and other theater troupes, entered the Fullerton theater program in 1987.

Last spring, at her suggestion, she was given a teaching role that made her the unofficial student leader within the department.

Dodson’s sister, Alyssa, also a performer, said her family was surprised and touched by the number of people who expressed their sympathies and shared memories of Dodson.

“None of us had any idea of the effect she had on people’s lives,” she said. “All the students have been coming up to me and telling me about all the lessons she left them with, lessons they took into life.”