LSA junior Ashley Wibel died early Monday morning at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit as a result of complications from diabetes. She was 21.
She was born on Jan. 21, 1985 and grew up in West Bloomfield with her mother Toni, her father Rick and brother Roy.
School of Education junior Katie Kipp, her long-time friend and former roommate, said Wibel “had an amazing spirit.”
Wibel’s father said she was a skilled athlete.
In high school, she was a varsity softball and volleyball player and also played the tuba in the band.
Wibel loved the University’s sports teams and had attended Michigan football games since she was 2 years old.
“There was not a bigger Michigan sports fan,” her father said.
Wibel recently became interested in baking and “made the best cakes” for her friends, Kipp said.
She worked as a camp counselor at the Hayo-Went-Ha YMCA camp in northern Michigan, facilitating canoeing trips and other outdoor activities.
Engineering junior Laura Emig worked at the camp with Wibel and remembered her as loving the outdoors.
Emig reminisced about a sailing trip she went on with Wibel to the Virgin Islands. After returning from snorkeling, their small boat began to fill with water and eventually ended up on the bottom of the ocean.
“We tried to bail out the boat, but we were laughing too hard to do anything productive,” Emig said.
“Wibel would do anything for anybody who needed help,” Kipp said. “I will miss her until I see her again.”
Wibel’s funeral will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday at Advent Episcopal Church in West Bloomfield.
The visitation will be held Thursday from 3 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. at the Pixley Funeral Home in the Godhardt-Tomlinson chapel in Keego Harbor, Mich.