Tamara Abromitis loved her time at Penn State—where she majored in communications and minored in dance—but after four years in perpetually overcast Happy Valley, the Selinsgrove, Pa., native moved to Phoenix for a fresh, sunny start. “She wanted to go somewhere where it was sunny all the time,” says her father, John ’77 Agr.

Abromitis ’07 Com had no family in Arizona, but she soon built her own through the Phoenix Chapter of the Alumni Association, where her efforts and energy were felt for more than 16 years. “Tam was the heart of our chapter in Phoenix,” says friend Leah Lewandowski ’97 Lib, who succeeded Abromitis as chapter president. “Even when she wasn’t president, she was very involved and was always helping out. Everybody knew her. She just had a presence.”

Over the years Abromitis worked in radio, marketing, and sports promotion, and as a paralegal. But her greatest passion was volunteering, including for the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, in honor of her mother, Marianne, who died of breast cancer when Abromitis was 15. At Phoenix Chapter events, she was “always smiling,” Lewandowski says. “She was very charismatic, very friendly, a very good listener. At watch parties, she would dance around after touchdowns.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Abromitis, then chapter president, organized a virtual happy hour. “She was the life of the party,” Lewandowski says.

Abromitis was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 33. She died May 5, 2024, at age 39. Besides John, she is survived by her brother, John II; stepmother, Evelyn; a stepbrother, and several extended family members. —Robyn Rydzy '95 Com.