Wyatt Allen Honse

Wyatt Allen Honse passed away on December 26th, 2023, in Madison, Wisconsin, after a prolonged battle with cancer of the gastroesophageal junction. He was 35. He passed away peacefully in his sleep in the company of his wife and brother, with his cat Isla sleeping at his feet.

Wyatt was born February 23rd, 1988 in San Francisco, California. From a young age, he was passionate about, and gifted in, an eclectic range of pursuits. Wyatt thrived in the arts. He was a talented saxophone player, a pursuit he took up at age nine and continued to pursue through college where he double-majored in music. He was also a natural performer who dabbled in voice acting as a child and improv as a young adult. Most people shrink in the spotlight of public attention; Wyatt thrived there.

He was also a talented athlete. He ran and skied competitively through high school, and nurtured a love of running and skiing in his adult life. One of his greatest passions, however, was cycling. Wyatt excelled at cycling and rode competitively for the cycling team in college. He continued to mountain and road bike after college and was uniquely fulfilled by his many long and grueling bike rides.

Wyatt’s passion for athleticism and for the arts did not overshadow his intellectual gifts. Wyatt was an exceptionally bright student from an early age, and showed an early interest in academic pursuits from engineering to philosophy to political science. Wyatt skipped a grade in middle school and went on to be valedictorian of his class at North Tahoe High School in 2005. He then obtained dual degrees in music and mechanical engineering from Cornell University in 2010.

In the span of his short 35 years Wyatt considered more career paths than many people do in a lifetime and gained accolades in each. Though his college training opened him up to pursue careers as a musician or engineer, immediately after college Wyatt pivoted to become a science teacher at the Urban Assembly School for Arts in Harlem, NYC. He was beloved by his students for his charisma and dynamism and was twice elected by the students as the best teacher of the year.

After three years of teaching, Wyatt’s interests shifted to a career in law. Wyatt spent some of the happiest years of his life pursuing a law degree at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where he was a member of the Northwestern University Law Review. Upon receiving his law degree, Wyatt moved to Palo Alto to work on intellectual property litigation at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. It was there that he met his wife, Chloe Grace Hart. Wyatt then worked at the nonprofit Legal Aid at Work before beginning a clerkship in the summer of 2022 with Judge James Peterson of the Western District of Wisconsin. He was diagnosed with cancer several months later.

If Wyatt struggled with one thing professionally, it was fitting his many passions into a single career. He worked as a teacher and as an attorney, and was equipped to be an engineer or a musician; in addition, he variously considered careers as an astronaut, a bike mechanic, a politician, and a law professor. In truth Wyatt could have excelled at any of these careers.

Wyatt was many things: a musician, an athlete, an intellectual, but above all, the funniest and most charismatic man in any room. He was most alive when steeped in intellectual debate, riding his mountain bike, or laughing about life’s absurdity with friends and family. To know Wyatt was to know a fountain of joy and curiosity. He was a man that thought deeply about the universe and despite its darkness saw only light and beauty in humanity.

Wyatt is survived by his wife Chloe Grace Hart, his parents Kathryn and Stuart Honse, his brother Evan Honse and sister-in-law Caroline Cole, and his niece Charlotte Honse.

In lieu of flowers Wyatt requested that donations are made to the below fund created in Wyatt’s honor dedicated to improving early detection methods for esophagogastric cancer. http://mskcc.convio.net/goto/honoringWyatt
As well as the Tahoe Area Mountain Bike Association https://tamba.org/

A celebration of life will take place on June 15th at 1pm at Granlibakken Tahoe. http://www.granlibakken.com All are welcome to attend.

Please share your memories at www.cressfuneralservice.com

Cress Center

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