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Lehi Free Press honors journalist and friend Brynn Carnesecca
Sally Francom, Rob Shelton
Lehi Free Press
Brynn Carnesecca had a way of making the person across the table feel like the only one in the room. Colleagues at the Lehi Free Press and American Fork Citizen say that gift showed up in every story she wrote, and it’s why the newsroom is struggling to say goodbye.
Carnesecca, 21, died last Sunday. Her mother, Michele Carnesecca, told KSL, “She took her own precious life, but she is more than what happened to her. We would like to celebrate the amazing life she lived.”
Carnesecca was crowned Miss American Fork in 2024 and earned the Miss Congeniality award at Miss Utah. She wrote for the American Fork Citizen, the Lehi Free Press and BYU’s Daily Universe. She interned at Utah Valley Magazine, KSL and KTVX Good Things Utah. She also founded Envelopes of Hope, a pen-pal program connecting volunteers with incarcerated Utahns, work she started while competing for Miss Utah.
Friends and readers already knew her as a musician, volunteer and pageant queen. Her coworkers at the Citizen and the Lehi Free Press knew a different side: a young reporter who chased stories with enthusiasm, bringing a positive influence to her community.
“She had a great knack for putting subjects at ease,” said Beky Beaton, sports editor, who watched Carnesecca grow from a newcomer into a steady hand on deadline. “She was able to tackle complex or controversial subjects with both determination and sensitivity. She left a lasting, positive influence on everyone she contacted.”
Beaton said sources often called back after their interviews ran just to say how much they’d appreciated working with her.
Former digital editor Skyler Beltran remembers a reporter who did more than fill column inches.
“She had an ability to light up every room she entered,” Beltran said. “She brought warmth and kindness to everyone she met. She was incredibly talented, always willing to lend a helping hand, and lived a life of service to others. Her passing is a heartbreaking loss for our community.”
Reporter Megan Wallgren said that warmth was the reason Carnesecca’s stories worked.
“She had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the room,” Wallgren said. “She genuinely loved people. I think that’s what made her such a great journalist. She cared about those she wrote about and those she was writing for.”
Reporter Kristen Meier, who worked alongside Carnesecca on community coverage, said the newsroom lost one of its brightest young talents.
“Her contributions to the newsroom were immeasurable,” Meier said. “She served countless hours in our community side by side with our leaders and residents. She wrote untold stories and made us all better for reading them.”
Jennifer Thomas, who also worked with Carnesecca, said Brynn’s talent extended well past reporting. “Brynn possessed a radiant spirit that comforted countless souls, a luminous smile that sparked pure joy, and a literary gift that left us with masterfully crafted stories,” Thomas said. “She inspired in me a desire to write better and to write with intent. I love her like my own.”
That reach went beyond the newsroom. Rita Law, who worked with Carnesecca on a story about a local program, said the impact was the same whether the interaction lasted an hour or a season.
“She was so wonderful to work with and helped our program tremendously,” Law said. “She will be missed not only by those who knew her closely, but those of us who only had brief interactions.”
Summerissa Bell Stevens, president of the Harrington Center for the Arts, said Carnesecca interviewed her organization countless times over the years and volunteered there as well.
“Brynn was one of those rare people who made every room brighter simply by being in it,” Stevens said. “She loved music, she loved people, and she loved this community. Our events brought together the very things she was most passionate about.”
“One of Brynn’s greatest gifts was the way she saw people,” Stevens said. “Whether you were a volunteer, an artist, a child or someone she had just met, she had a way of making you feel valued. That is a gift our community will never forget.”
“So many people carry burdens we cannot see,” Stevens said. “And to any young person who may be struggling today: please hold on. The pain you feel today does not have to define your future. Your story is not over, and this world is better with you in it.”
Publishers’ Note:
We don’t normally insert ourselves into our coverage, but this one hit home, and we are taking the liberty of saying a few things as publishers.
We never met anyone who walked away from an interview with Brynn unhappy with how she told their story. That’s rarer than people outside this business realize. She had an instinct for finding the stories that don’t announce themselves, the volunteer nobody profiles, the program running quietly in the background, the person who’s been doing good for years without anyone noticing. Brynn noticed. And she made sure the rest of us did too.
She had a laugh that put the room at ease before she’d said a word, and a smile that did the same. Brynn walked into a meeting, and the temperature of the room changed. That’s not something you can teach a reporter. It’s something you either have or you don’t, and she had it in abundance.
She came to the Lehi Free Press as a high school junior, asking for a journalism internship. She was polite, articulate and willing to learn. So, we hired her as an intern. First, she watched us edit stories and learned. Then, she started to write, and from the beginning, her stories were unusually good for a high school student. She was open to all the coaching, and every subsequent story was better and better.
After high school, we hired her to work at the Lehi Free Press office in sales and as a reporter. She was unusually mature and articulate for an 18-year-old. Honestly, she was remarkable.
Brynn’s time with us was short by any ordinary measure. But measuring her by time feels like the wrong instrument. Some people spend a lifetime and leave less behind than she did. She changed how this community saw itself, one story at a time, and that doesn’t go away because the byline stops.
We’ll miss her. American Fork and Lehi will miss her. And we’re grateful, in the middle of missing her, that we got to work alongside her at all.
Sally Francom, Publisher, Lehi Free Press
Rob Shelton, Publisher, American Fork Citizen
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