14-02-2025
'She was a gift': Community mourns death of teacher whose heart was 'filled with joy'
Kyla Burton was the teacher you dream of having at your school.
Her kindergarteners at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Indio, California, ran across the playground to her, happily shrieking her name. Her classroom was colorful, warm, and the walls burst with learning and love. Heart-shaped paper chains draped across a whiteboard alongside a bulletin board filled with smiling students' snapshots.
To the right, a simple message read: You Belong Here.
Now, her family, friends and colleagues are grieving, trying to explain to her young students what they can't fathom themselves. Burton died unexpectedly on Feb. 2 of complications of influenza and pneumonia. She was 57.
"I don't know if the tears will ever truly stop. How can they, when you have lost a best friend?" colleague Allison Cyr said. 'Although sadness is not how I know she would want us to feel. When thinking of Kyla, a smile automatically comes to my face. … Kyla made every job she held look seamless and magical. She captivated the minds and hearts of all she crossed paths with."
Those sentiments are shared by many.
For her hallmark devotion, Burton was named Teacher of the Year in 2023 at her school by her colleagues.
A hard worker her entire life, she went out of her way to show her care for others with gestures small and large, said Cyr and her husband, Greg Burton, whether gamely tackling the Grand Canyon despite an aversion to camping or comforting an overworked colleague with laughs over bag lunches.
Greg Burton is the executive editor of The Arizona Republic and a regional editor for USA TODAY in the West, leading newsrooms in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada and California as well as Arizona. He is a past executive editor of The Desert Sun in Palm Springs.
Those close to Kyla Burton fondly recount her growing a small garden with her students, just outside their classroom windows.
Children of the digital age, she believed, had lost touch with and "needed to learn the life cycle of seed, soil, water and sun, and the genesis and rebirth of food from nature," her husband said.
After harvest, she and the children ate salted pumpkin seeds she baked at home and students kept watch over a pumpkin under glass as mold and decay returned it to water and earth.
Growing food was in her blood. Born Dec. 27, 1967, in Moscow, Idaho, Burton was the youngest child of Larry Torvil BeVan and Donna Belle (Davie) BeVan, farmers in a fertile cradle between Moscow Mountain and Paradise Ridge.
She spent her childhood close to nature, her husband said, riding her family's horses bareback in the summers and flying down snow-covered hills on toboggans in the winter. Burton worked from a young age, first on her family's farm and later cleaning houses, waitressing and working at the local hospital and a dentist's office to save enough money for college.
She earned her elementary education degree in 1992 from the University of Idaho. Her first professional teaching job was at A.B. McDonald Elementary School in her hometown.
Burton's mother briefly taught elementary school, and her grandmother was a lifelong educator who read storybooks for hours to her when she was a toddler. While in high school, one of Burton's elementary school teachers asked her to volunteer in her classroom, a gesture she pointed to as instrumental to her future, according to her husband.
Smiling Kyla BeVan met shy Greg Burton at a restaurant where they both worked. On breaks, they snuck away for lattes and bean soup elsewhere. He rode his motorcycle regularly across state lines to court her before moving to Moscow, "ditching pretense and saving gasoline," he said. In 1988, they were married in Newport Hills, Washington, and honeymooned for one night in a Seattle hotel.
Burton urged her husband, an introspective student, to pick one career, any one, and he chose journalism. Over the years, as they moved to Delaware and then California for his newspaper jobs, she earned her teaching license in four states, mastering conflicting bureaucracies and requirements.
She gave birth to their son, Blake, in 1996 at the same small-town Idaho hospital where she was born. Daughter Adria was born in 2000. Both Blake and Adria were International Baccalaureate scholars at La Quinta High School, and their daughter was co-valedictorian in 2018.
Her colleagues remember Burton as someone who wanted the people around her to feel recognized, while holding them to high standards.
"One thing that I know for sure is, her students loved her. The way they yelled her name and ran to her across the playground was pure joy. She opened their minds," Cyr said. "She brought life to the classroom in a way most only dream of doing. ... When students didn't get something quite right, she breathed relief into them that made them feel like failure was only temporary and great success was possible if you keep trying."
On long, sometimes tough, school days, Burton found a way to bring smiles to her students and fellow educators.
"From singing songs to learning the alphabet, to counting while dancing, to sitting on the floor at her feet to listening to a story, to dress-up days, her class was pure magic," Cyr said.
"From coffee and lunch and every other adventure in between, there was never a dull moment. Laughter really is the best medicine," her colleague said. "There will forever be a Kyla void from here on out. She was irreplaceable."
In Indio, Burton began as a substitute teacher at Lyndon B. Johnson Elementary School, then became an intervention teacher and eventually landed a kindergarten teaching position at Kennedy.
Burton was the comforting presence students turned to when they were feeling down.
'Even years later, the kids still remembered things they did with her,' said Niccole Demke, Burton's colleague at Kennedy Elementary. 'When the kids found out that she had passed, it was a very emotional thing for us, and a way for the kids to sit and talk about memories and things they had done with her. She made a big impact.'
Burton's infectious enthusiasm shone through in the weeks just before her unexpected illness and death, including during a holiday team-building game with other teachers, which she triumphantly and laughingly won.
She made sure to join colleagues from Kennedy Elementary at the Desert Sands board meeting on the evening of Jan. 21 to cheer on their school nutrition specialist as she was recognized with an employee of the month award.
Days before she died, her husband said Burton picked out the shoes her daughter, Adria, would wear to match her gown at her wedding this spring.
"Her heart was filled with joy," he said.
"She was a gift to children and friends in the schools and communities where she taught. She was beloved by family and gave every spare ounce to improve this world, small selfless act after small selfless act," Greg Burton wrote in an emotional Facebook post. "She was my joy and inspiration … There is a hole in my heart that leads to heaven."
Fourteen pieces of handmade artwork by tiny hands still hung in two neat rows in her classroom — winter mittens painted by her students, each one uniquely decorated. A letter, pinned among other treasured keepsakes, stands out above her desk.
In the unmistakable handwriting of a child, it reads: Best Teacher Ever.
In addition to her husband of 36 years, her children and mother, Burton is survived by her brother Torvil BeVan and his wife of Viola, Idaho; sister Leah Mahaffy and her husband of Phoenix; brother Erik BeVan and his partner of Cave Creek; in-laws, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins, as well as countless friends, students and families whose lives she touched with a smile and warm greeting: "Welcome to our school.'
Memorial services will be planned for the spring in the Coachella Valley in California and the summer in Idaho.
To honor Burton's memory, her family asks that donations be made in her name to a University of Idaho scholarship fund they created for aspiring teachers. To donate, visit the university's giving page at and type "Kyla" in the search field to find her scholarship.
Donations by check may also be made payable to the University of Idaho Foundation Inc., 875 Perimeter Drive MS 3143, Moscow, ID 83844-3143, with "Kyla M. Burton Scholarship Endowment" in the memo line or a brief cover letter. To donate by phone, call 208-885-4000.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kyla Burton, beloved California kindergarten teacher, dies at 57
