Senior Ava Hecht died on Thursday, January 8 from bacterial meningitis.

Ava was a beloved member of the Stuyvesant community. “She was the one person I know who was spontaneous and generally hilarious,” senior John Wittrock said. “She was always on, just moving and doing.”

“Ava was really full of life in everything she did,” senior Mark Surya said. “She approached everything with such intensity. It was always so inspiring to see.”

Ava, an Art Director for the Spectator, was a talented artist. She was always doodling, even during class. “It was so clearly not an indication of lack of focus or attention. It was part of how she learned,” Assistant Principal English Eric Grossman said. “I loved watching for that moment when she’d look up from her doodling with a glint in her eye and I’d know that she had something to say.”

“She told me once that the sure sign of how hard an essay was for her to write was the number of scraps of doodled paper on top of her computer desk because as she sat there struggling about what to write about she would just sit there doodling,” English teacher Jonathan Weil said. “That’s a classic Ava thing.”

Ava was a Soprano I in the Stuyvesant Chamber Chorus for three-and-a-half years. Music Appreciation teacher and Chorus director Holly Hall said Ava was “full of good humor and full of jollity that kept the spirits of her colleagues up.”

Her experience in chorus was the inspiration for a comic Ava drew, “Soprano Man,” in which Soprano Man and his sidekick, Tenor Girl, battle Raging Soprano, the villain. The superheroes she created were modeled after her friends.

Ava also enjoyed fencing. She was a member of the Stuyvesant fencing team for two years. Senior Lydia Booz said that Ava “could do all of these crazy bendy things like put her foot behind her head.”

Ava was a kind and compassionate friend. Before this year’s Winter Concert, senior Mem Barnett and Ava walked around Chinatown in the snow and sleet. “Ava was just there and we talked. She listened to everything I said (I probably talked too much) and didn’t complain,” Barnett said.

Ava also comforted senior Simone-Marie Feigenbaum when she had a problem. “She didn’t say random clichés that wouldn’t have made me feel any better. She just listened and hugged me and told me everything would be okay,” Feigenbaum said. “I miss that.”

Ava had many friends inside and outside of school. She befriended the teenagers who hang out at St. Mark’s Place in the East Village after they asked her for money.

“Ava was the most open-minded person I’ve ever met,” Barnett said. “People I would never think anyone would ever talk to were a big part of her life. She had this culture she was a part of.”

“For her very first essay this year, she wrote about her friends who hang out on St. Mark’s and about her admiration for them,” Grossman said. “I wrote back that I was thrilled that she is interested in so many different types of people.”

Ava, who played the piano, was also interested in many different types of music. “[Ava] was really open-minded about music, people, books,” Feigenbaum said. “If she found something new, she would go and experience it.”

Click here for reflections and some of Ava’s art.