Biography on self for History

Kaya Hartleys Biography
By: Kaya Hartley
Kaya Danae Hartley died at the age of 16 in a terrible accident that occurred at Merit College Preparatory Academy. I have since gathered information about her, so that we can now learn about the thrilling life of this deceased teenage girl. Kaya Hartley was born in Karlsruhe, Germany. She lived there until she was one, and then the army moved her family to Belton, Texas where her sister, Courtney Brooke Hartley was born. Shortly after her sisters birth they were moved once again to Tucson Arizona. There her parents divorced, causing her mother, sister and herself to stay in Arizona for a total of 3 years. Towards the end of the third year the decision was made to move to Provo, Utah. Kaya and her family resided there until the day of her death. (Petersen,1 )

Ever since Kaya was young, she had wanted to travel to Africa to help end the poverty there. (Hartley, 2) She was involved in a charity group called Invisible Children and planned on starting a club at school to raise money for It and eventually go to Africa to do some hands on help (Hartley, 3) “ Kaya was a person with a big heart, she wanted to travel to Africa to learn more about the culture, and teach the people to become more self sufficient so that they could escape from severe poverty. Kaya wanted to make a difference in the world.” (Petersen, 1 ) As a first step towards Kayas goal of “making a difference” she started her own charity called IMPACT. She would make stencil shirts and sell them to people, donating all the money that she earned to Invisible Children. (Hartley, 3)
One day Kaya came home from preschool with a big chunk of hair cut off. When her mom asked her what had happened, she replied “I had to use it for my art project.” When Kaya was just a toddler she was drawing on walls and practicing funny faces. Starting in Kindergarten she loved to sit in front of the mirror and see how many ways she could twist her face so it would look funny and talk in different voices. In elementary she enjoyed dressing up and putting on plays that she would create. She was constantly creating art, whether it was a back drop for her play or just doodles. On family road trips she would sit in the back seat and entertain her family with stories she would make up. (Petersen, 1 )

Kaya loved to go on adventures. Her mom would often bring her family on outdoors trips, they regularly went hiking and camping. She would create her own trails and discover new places, pretending she lived in the wild. (photo ,4) Her aunts and uncles lived all over, so Kaya would get to travel around a lot to visit them, She attended a lot of family reunions in California, as well as Washington, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah. (photo, 4)
As I examined Kayas room, it came to my attention that she was a very messy, unorganized girl. Her floor was covered in clothes, so that you could barely see the actual floor. On one of her walls she had hung big pieces of paper that she had drawn on, leaving the charcoal and drawing utensils sitting out on her floor. She had a big un- made bed, which leads me to believe she enjoyed sleeping. Her mother told me that she was a night owl and did most of her work at night ( Petersen, 1) On her door she had a bunch of hooks, each one holding up a scarf. Her room was a robin egg blue color, and she had different culture- style artwork hanging from her walls and displayed on her desk. Her desk was also extremely unorganized, piled with pictures of friends, clothes, jewelry and old homework assignments. (room, 5)

Kaya struggled in school, She would often be behind on assignments and have trouble paying attention in class. Math was a hard subject for her, but she enjoyed English very much. (Hartley, 2) She was falling behind in her classes during her freshman year of high school and felt stupid for not understanding the assignments, and guilty for doodling and day dreaming when she should have been paying attention. Her mom took her in to a doctor to take a test, where she discovered that she had ADD. She tried taking medication but wasn’t a huge fan, so she decided to try to learn how to work with it instead. (Petersen, 1)

Kayas parents divorced when she was two. She lived with her mom, but arrangements were made so that her and her sister could visit their dad every summer. (Hartley, 2) When Kaya was about 5 years old her dad remarried, and then about two years later had a son. (photo, 4) Her and her sister were very close to their step mom and step brother and enjoyed visiting them and their dad every summer in Arizona. Kaya stated in her journal that her favorite childhood memories are those that she had in Tucson Arizona on her dads ranch during the summers she spent there. When Kaya was in fifth grade her Dad went through some various problems and serious depression, and attempted suicide. (A failed attempt, thank goodness  ) This caused some legal problems, so that Kaya and her sister couldn’t spend the summers with their dad anymore. The two sisters struggled with this, but learned to appreciate their mom more by seeing how hard she worked for them. Kaya had lived with her mother and her sister for the majority of her life, and loved it. They grew very close to each other and created a great friendship. (Hartley, 2)