Anne Conlin Burnett Wyma

Anne Conlin Burnett Wyma

4/1/2022

Anne Conlin Burnett Wyma, age 85, passed away peacefully at home in Orange City, Florida on April 1, 2022.  The only child of Kenneth Hensel Burnett and Mary Bernice O’Brien Burnett, her family was made much larger by the many cousins and other relatives, friends, husband Bruce Harris Wyma, their three children and the whole Wyma and Covey family that she folded into her life.

Valedictorian of her 1954 Class of Ida Grove, Iowa High School, her life-long love of learning would take her to Iowa State University earning a Bachelor of Science in Radio and Telecommunications.  She went on to earn Master’s Degrees in English, Communications and Theatre from The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and began Doctoral work in Theatre and Performance at New York University.

In Pittsburgh, her professional career included professorships in Theatre and Communications at Penn State University and Community College of Allegheny County as well as Co-Founder of Pennsylvania Repertory Theatre and The Lion Walk Center for The Performing Arts.  While at New  York University, Gallatin Division, she served as Advisor in Arts and Arts Management and was a Co-Founding Editor of the journal Women & Performance.

Anne branched into a second career in the financial sector as an editor of industry publications for Paine Webber, Teather & Greenwood and UBS.  But her true love was theatre.  Seeing that love of live performance spark in her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she was returning to her NYU thesis work entitled Mrs. Hallam Douglass:  America’s First Leading Lady, preparing it as a piece of living history to share because nothing gave her greater joy than seeing creativity bloom in those she cared about.

Anne is predeceased by her son Peter Bruce Wyma and survived by her daughters Kimberly Wyma Emert (William Martin Emert), Kari Wyma-Dominey (Lex Drew Dominey), grandchildren Miles Wyma Dominey (Kayde Solomakos), Lela Anne Dominey, Tess Swan Dominey, Sydney Anne Wyma and great-grandchildren Zykai and Tavia.