Marine, East Aurora Native Medina Honored With Street Dedication

AURORA, IL — A fallen 23-year-old Marine and Aurora who was killed while in service to her country was honored in a Memorial Day ceremony as the street that she grew up on will now bear her name.

Liberty Street in East Aurora will be recognized as Corporal Sara Medina Way after the local veteran who was killed in a helicopter crash in 2015 that also killed seven other people, including five other U.S. Marines as well as two Nepali soldiers.

Medina enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2010, shortly after graduating from East Aurora High School. Before deploying to Nepal, she had photographed Marines in South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, and the United States.

After an earthquake struck Nepal, the U.S. military deployed a Joint Humanitarian Assistance Team. But on the afternoon of May 12, 2015, the helicopter crashed and killed everyone on board, including Medina.

“Today, we stand to honor a courageous young Marine,” Aurora Mayor Richard Irwin said at the ceremony on Monday.

Medina’s mother, Cecilia Lopez Leyva, said that it is appropriate that the street name that was dedicated in her daughter’s honor is named “Liberty”.

The ceremony was attended by friends, family members, former teachers and fellow veterans and included a poem by Aurora deputy poet laureate Quentin Johnson, who read “An Ode To Sara Medina” at the re-dedication ceremony.

In the poem, Johnson said that the humanitarian call took “our angel up to the sky.”

“She was the best daughter, she was the best sister, she was the greatest of friends, ” Johnson read. “Although she’s not here, her love was so dear, and Sarah’s legacy never ends.”

“This Liberty belle make our heart swell with patriotic admiration.”