By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – Brave, independent, loving, accepting and bright are several words Brailyn Wyatt’s classmates at Elvin Hill Elementary School used to describe her in the wake of her untimely death last month.

Students and staff at EHES have spent the last few weeks remembering and honoring Wyatt, 11, by drawing pictures, signing a banner, releasing balloons and planting an evergreen tree in the school yard.

Wyatt was in the fifth grade and had attended EHES since kindergarten.

“The whole fifth grade had some piece or some part of being with Brailyn throughout the years,” Wyatt’s teacher, Misty Howard, said. “She was a special girl.”

Wyatt’s classmates each drew a picture for her and wrote notes they attached to the bottom of the balloons they released outside on March 25.

“We did a picture of what reminded us of what Brailyn was like before she passed,” said Paci Clark, who drew a yellow sun and wrote “You make my day shiny” below it. “Her smile was bright. She made everybody’s day when she smiled.”

Howard said her class released the balloons, but the entire fifth grade gathered outside for the ceremony.

“That was our bye-bye to her,” Howard said.

A long banner hanging on the windows in the front of the school is filled with notes and signatures from students and staff at EHES, and is adorned with pink and purple, Wyatt’s two favorite colors.

Wyatt was born on Dec. 25, 2004, and enjoyed fishing, listening to music, playing with her dolls and spending time with family and friends.

“She loved her family a lot,” EHES Principal Betsy Smith said of Wyatt. “They loved her dearly.”

Jaxon Stinson, another of Wyatt’s classmates, said the evergreen tree planted in her honor ties in with her birthday.

“It’s like a Christmas tree because she was born on Christmas Day,” Stinson said.

Wyatt overcame health obstacles including a stroke when she was in kindergarten.

“She had to be really strong to get through that experience as a young person,” classmate Lily Gallups said. “A lot of us didn’t know she was sick.”

“She came a long way,” Clark said of Wyatt.

Clark and Howard said Wyatt also reached her goal of speaking up more in the classroom.

“One of her goals was to talk more in class, and she did that this year,” Howard said. “She’s just like a flower because she’s definitely blossomed from beginning to end.”

“She was very shy, but this year, she came out of her shell,” Clark added.

Other students in Shelby County have expressed support of Wyatt’s classmates. Third-graders at Valley Intermediate School made Howard’s class sympathy cards after Wyatt’s death.

Also, the school has collected about $600 in donations to help Wyatt’s family purchase a headstone for her grave.

“We have definitely felt the love,” Howard said.