Kinny Liu’s first memory of Megan Yoder was an event for Net Impact, an IU Kelley School of Business club. She was a blur, snapping photos in the crowd.
“We were all terrified of the speaker,” Liu said, who worked as co-president of Net Impact with Megan. “No one wanted to ask the first question – except Megan.”
Megan Yoder, 21 and a junior at IU, died Aug. 25 after a year-long battle with multifocal glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer.
She was born Dec. 4, 1995, in Indianapolis. She was enrolled in IU Bloomington’s Kelley School of Business Honors program, where she studied supply chain management and sustainable business.
She is survived by her family, her fiance, her parents and her brother.
Yoder battled with leukemia since seventh grade, her family said. She had been in remission for five years when she began having numbness in the left side of her face and body last September.
Her family and friends describe her as fearless and passionate. She was passionate about the environment, understanding other people and their cultures and creating a greener IU.
She wanted to work in disadvantaged parts of the world, specifically in Latin America after an internship in Ecuador. Her goal was to help people learn sustainable business skills while being environmentally conscious.
Her father said she loved to scuba dive. He said she started when she was 13 and it made her fall in love with the environment and oceans. She traveled across the world, studying abroad in Seville where she researched the use of drones for search-and-rescue missions for accidents. She also interned in Ecuador after her freshman year of college.
Yoder was co-president of the business sustainability club Net Impact for over a year. Her club advisor, Steven Kreft, said she was results-oriented.
“She was always eager to learn and always happy to lead,” Kreft said.
Liu said Yoder wanted the club to be pushed even further, to get members exposed to all types of sustainability in business. She recalled that Megan once tried to push students to go to two speaker events in one week, saying Megan always wanted the members to fulfill their potential.
Liu said that as co-presidents of Net Impact, they worked together even after Yoder had to withdraw from school in Sept. 2016 to receive treatment.
"She was still so involved, always checking in." Liu said.
IU was her home away from home. Her father said she was “crimson through and through.”
Jacob Luebbehusen, Yoder’s fiance and boyfriend of six years, said Kelley provided her with a way to help people who couldn't get their heads above water.
“She never wanted to be rich or powerful or CEO of a Fortune 500 company, like you’d think so many Kelley kids want to be,” Luebbehusen said. “She wanted to get into a company like that so she could change that system, so it wouldn’t be benefiting a couple of people at the top of the chain. It would benefit everybody.”
Luebbehusen also said she was never the type of person to sit still.
“She was a big believer in not wasting time,” Luebbehusen said. “She never took naps.”
He said she would often inspire her friends and roommates to get out and do anything rather than just sit around.
“I think for a 21-year-old to say that is pretty out of place because you usually hear that from grandparents who can’t go out and do things," Luebbehusen said. "And for our generation’s norm, it’s completely normal to be like ‘Oh, I don’t feel like getting out of bed today.’ That wasn’t her.”
The family asked that, instead of donating flowers, people donate to the Megan Marie Yoder Award for Sustainable Business scholarship fund or the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.
