Just hours after 17-year-old Saylor Voris lost her 19-month battle with leukemia Tuesday, hundreds of San Clemente residents assembled outside her home in solidarity with her family.
Her father, John Voris, had announced her passing with a post on Facebook. Word spread swiftly about the San Clemente High cheerleader, who had inspired her hometown with her resilience, her infectious smile and her refusal to give in.
The street turned into a sea of faces, illuminated by candles, sharing classmates’ grief and celebrating Saylor’s life in front of the home she had shared with her parents John and Konnie Voris and her younger brother Sam.
Students embraced, wept, shared tearful and humorous stories and signed farewells to Saylor on the garage door.
John Voris played a recorded message that Saylor had left.
“She said her goodbyes to me, to Sam, to Konnie, to all of you,” John told the crowd.
“Her faith was so strong,” local resident Jay Bellamy said. “She has touched this town. She has touched every one of us.”
Classmates remembered Saylor for – as Jessica Conneely put it – “her positivity and her smile.”
“She was a friend to everyone,” Katie Head said.
“She is a true inspiration,” Megan Carroll said.
“She was a person who could always bring everybody together,” Chanel Albert said. “She had the most courage that I’ve ever seen in anyone.”
Saylor also had become known around the county, as people rallied around her and the Voris family since her September 2013 diagnosis.
Fundraisers were held around South County. In San Clemente, the teen was celebrated at the community’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life, an event that she and her family had attended and supported for years, prior to her diagnosis. In Orange, where John Voris is a city firefighter, firefighters shaved heads in solidarity with Saylor, who had lost her own hair to chemotherapy.
The mayor of Orange invited Saylor to light the community tree in December 2013, voicing hope that Saylor would “feel the love and support of the more than 6,000 people.”
On Tuesday evening, an Orange firetruck parked outside the Voris home as firefighters lent their moral support.
Dave Malone, a freshman football coach at SCHS, said Saylor was in and out of school this year but managed to attend football games, even did some cheerleading. He told the crowd that “when life gets tough on you, you’re going to hear somebody whisper in your ear. It’s going to be her. She’ll tell you don’t quit.”
Saylor remained a member of the San Clemente High cheerleading team through her ordeal, even if she could not participate at times. In 2013 she would watch SCHS football games from bed, on her laptop. Football commentator Rich Corder would talk about her during broadcasts, wishing her well.
“She was an inspiration to me and all of us,” Corder said.
Last September, after spending most of the previous six months in the hospital, Saylor was able to visit Corder in the broadcast booth before a home football game.
“It really meant a lot to me,” she said.
“She had no quit in her,” Corder told Tuesday’s vigil. “I hope to God that I can have just a little bit of the courage that she had.”
“We are just so grateful to have San Clemente … we’ve had so much support from friends, from strangers, it’s been amazing,” Konnie Voris said.
In a Feb. 23 post on Facebook, Saylor wrote that “it’s gonna get harder before it gets easier, but it will get better. You just got to make it through the hard stuff first.”
Announcement of services is pending.
Contact the writer: Nathan Percy contributed to this report.
