Friends, family recall ‘a bright light.’ UNC student from Charlotte dies during hike

A 21-year-old Charlotte native and UNC-Chapel Hill undergraduate, who was known by family and friends to live in the moment and seek adventure, died Monday while hiking in Utah, according to her family.

Sally Sasz was in California visiting family friend Lesley Evers last week, Evers said, then traveled to Utah over the weekend to hike with another friend. There is no official cause of death, according to Sasz’s father, Steve Sasz, but being overtaken by heat was most likely the cause.

Those who knew Sally Sasz said she loved traveling, especially on the West Coast.

“She was going to have an unusual life,” said Evers. “She wasn’t just signing up for the regular. I was so excited to watch her life unfold.”

Steve Sasz remembers her as a thoughtful, caring and loving person. “There was no pretense,” he said.

Sally Sasz was a Morehead-Cain scholar at UNC, where people often described her as a “bright light,” someone who emitted joy, said UNC senior Cassie Drury, a close friend.

“She was the most approachable person,” Drury said. “She wanted to meet people and wanted to talk and was really open to the world.”

A student athlete

The oldest of three daughters, Sasz grew up in Charlotte and attended Charlotte Country Day School, where she played varsity tennis and basketball.

Her family recalled one basketball game against Charlotte Christian, the first game Sasz played. The team lost 61-26.

“It was horrible, and we got in the car and Sally goes, ‘That was so much fun,’ ” said her mother, Nancy Sasz.

Family and coaches said Sally Sasz would grab for the ball, even if there were only seconds left in the game. “They could be down 35 points, it didn’t matter,” Steve Sasz said. “That’s what she did.”

The varsity tennis team won the state championship all four years.

“We always knew that if it came down to Sally, we were going to win,” Country Day tennis coach Calvin Davis said. “And so many matches did come down to Sally.”

Sasz was president of Country Day’s National Art Honor Society. She was honored as the Top Scholar of the Year and awarded the Mary Allen Todd English Award as a high school senior.

“In so many ways, Sally was a living expression of our school’s mission,” Mark Reed, head of Country Day, wrote in a statement to the school community.

‘The brightest smile’

As a senior, Sasz earned a four-year Morehead-Cain merit scholarship to attend UNC. Her father recalled crying at least five times the night she got the news.

She was often spotted on UNC’s campus riding her lavender bike.

“I just remember the brightest smile on this fast moving young woman, who was head and shoulders above the crowd,” said Bland Simpson, a UNC professor of English and creative writing.

If she saw someone she knew, Sasz would stop and talk to them, even if it meant she’d be late to wherever she was going.

“She would drop anything and turn her love and attention to you,” said UNC senior Emily Galvin, who lived with Sasz for two years.

At UNC, Sasz studied art history and English. She was an ambassador for Arts Everywhere, a university-wide arts initiative, and co-chair of Art & Life, an after-school education program for Chapel Hill-Carrboro youth through the Campus Y.

“She loved to connect to art, to connect to people, to connect to experience,” her mother said.

For the past two summers, she worked at the Turner Carroll Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., writing exhibition essays, designing catalogs, working on curatorial projects and researching valuations.

Gallery owner Tonya Turner Carroll trusted Sasz to write the essay for a Hung Liu exhibition catalog this summer. She had no revisions.

“For the first time ever in the history of my gallery, which is 30 years old, I just sent her an email back saying, ‘This is brilliant. No changes,’ ” Turner Carroll said.

Turner Carroll had planned to offer Sally Sasz a job to start at the gallery after graduation.

Now, she plans to rename one of the gallery’s exhibition rooms in honor of Sasz.

This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 6:42 PM.