Lynn Sue Marie Klein Laurenti, a member of the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) community for many years and a beloved mother, grandmother, and steadfast friend, died peacefully on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 at Boca Raton Regional Hospital. She was 79. 
She was a local journalist and then a public relations professional, before working in several high-level positions on the FAU communications team. Over the course of 25 years, she served under four FAU presidents. 
"Lynn was a talented writer and storyteller with a true gift for making everyone she encountered feel special," said Lisa Metcalf, FAU's Chief Press Officer. "She will be missed by all who were fortunate enough to have met her." 
Lynn was born in Teaneck, NJ on May 22, 1941, the daughter of William Howard Klein and Olga Marsiglia Klein. When she was in high school, her family moved to Opa-locka, FL before relocating to Boca Raton a few years later. She completed a degree in English from FAU in 1966 as a member of the university's second graduating class and went on to earn a master's degree in journalism from the University of Florida. 
She began her career as a journalist at a time when women were a minority in American newsrooms. From the beginning, she distinguished herself by the curiosity and tenacity with which she approached her craft. After an editor turned down her application to become a reporter at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, she headed straight for the local police precinct and combed through the daily police blotter until she found a story that she thought would pique his interest. She wrote it up and called the editor, telling him she didn't expect payment – she just wanted to show him what she could do. 
The story ran, and Lynn was hired to report for the paper. She dove headfirst into her work--sometimes literally. Once, when a Greek fishing boat ran aground near the beach, she called on her experience as a mermaid in a traveling water ballet company to swim--fully clothed--out to the vessel to interview the captain and crew. She scooped the competition with her story. 
Lynn went on to a successful career at the paper and later at the Miami Herald, where she specialized in human-interest topics. It was a role for which she seemed ideally suited. "Lynn was a great human-interest writer because she was filled with human interest," said Carol Weber Thomas, an editor for the Herald at the time. "She could bring out someone's personality and inject it into the story. She brought humanity to every piece." 
She was painstaking in her work, always reporting until the last possible minute to lend just the right elements and balance to her stories. As a result, she blew through deadlines with predictable regularity. Weber Thomas recalls being stuck at the office until midnight one night waiting for Lynn to turn in a story. it was difficult to be too annoyed, she said, because the results of Lynn's efforts were invariably so good. Lynn, meanwhile, approached these deadline transgressions with characteristic good humor and self-deprecation. "She began to refer to herself as 'The Late Laurenti,'" said Weber Thomas. The nickname stuck. 
In the early 1970s, Lynn's work life took on an international dimension. She set off to explore Italy, the birthplace of her grandparents, and landed a job with the Rome Daily American, the city's English-language newspaper. While in Rome, she met her husband-to-be, Bruno Laurenti, and gave birth to their daughter, Susanna Olga Maria Laurenti, whom she counted as the greatest gift of her life. 
She and Susanna moved back to the states. After doing postgraduate work at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, she returned to South Florida, where she became a partner in the company that would later become Bitner, Laurenti, and Pierson, one of South Florida's leading public relations firms. 
She handled a variety of high-powered national accounts but took particular pride in doing pro bono work. When she learned of the plight of two-year-old Trine Engebretsen, who was gravely ill and needed a liver transplant, she launched a national public relations campaign to help find a donor. The effort led to the girl's successful liver transplant surgery, one of the first such operations of its kind at the time. Today, 35 years later, Trine is a physician with two children of her own. She is in training to become a pediatric transplant surgeon. 
In 1990, Lynn left the public relations firm to become director of media relations at her alma mater. During her 25-year tenure, she was promoted to vice president of university communications, chief speech writer, and later, university historian. In 2002, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the South Florida chapter of Women in Communications. 
After retiring in 2016, she kept up her pro bono work, volunteering for Champions Empowering Champions, a nonprofit organization that aids youth who are in foster care or experiencing homelessness. 
To her friends and family, Lynn was a lighthouse of love on life's sometimes dark journey. Her wit, kindness and generosity of spirit brightened the way for many, including some she barely knew. She once organized a lunch get-together of newcomers to the area whose only connection to her was a single mutual friend who lived 1,300 miles away. The women became good buddies, and the monthly meet-up, dubbed "The Great Broads Lunch," continues after more than 30 years. 
It's the sort of tale that Lynn's daughter, a local grant writer, hears repeatedly when people talk about her mother. "Virtually everyone has a personal story (maybe dozens) of a time when she was the person who did the thing they needed, or was there when she didn't have to be, or hugged them with pure warmth and compassion when that was just what they needed, and no one else had stepped up to give it," she wrote in a Facebook post. 
While Lynn's friends were her joy, her family was her heart and soul. The eldest of three children, Lynn was a devoted older sister to her brother, Vance Klein, and sister, Stephanie Klein. 
When Vance came into the world just in time for the celebration of VJ Day in 1945, Lynn, then 4, announced to a young friend that the pot-and-pan parade taking place in town that day was undoubtedly in honor of her new baby brother. Six years later, when Stephanie was born, Lynn was so excited to report the news to the neighbors that she missed several steps on the way out the door. In a stroke of amazing synchronicity, a neighbor with quick reflexes passed by at the same moment, catching her in mid-air. Completely unfazed by the near-disaster, Lynn announced to the stunned neighbor, "I have a baby sister!" 
Her enthusiasm for her siblings never waned; nor did her love and devotion to Vance's wife, Sue, Stephanie's husband, Larry, and niece and nephew, Rosa Klein-Baer and Nicholas Klein-Baer. 
The custom in her family was to christen every child with three given names. But, in practice, these were used far less often than the quirky nicknames the family assigned to one another. No one escaped the Klein household without one of these monikers. Lynn was best known as "Keelo," her brother as "Bucky," and her sister, "Bins." Family meant everything. In addition to Susanna and her husband Ed, the lights of Lynn's life were her grandchildren Gavin Edison Federico Weiser and Maizie Hope Gwendolynn Weiser. Meemaw, as she was known, played a key role in the youngsters' daily lives, chauffeuring them to and from school, and attending plays, concerts, and family celebrations. The kids' favorite after-school outings with their Meemaw were their frequent trips to Dunkin' Donuts, which she looked forward to as much as they did. As one friend noted, "Lynn loved her babies." 
Her affection also extended to the many animals in her life—dogs Dixie and Cali, and cats—too many to be counted, both her own and the strays lucky enough to show up on her property. When she learned that a large number of feral cats on the FAU campus were in danger of being exterminated, she stepped up to feed them herself—later organizing a network of volunteers to assist. 
In her later years, Facebook became Lynn's Holy Grail. She used the forum to advocate (often forcefully) for social justice, human rights, and political causes near to her heart. 
She reached out daily to friends around the globe. "She loved the platform because it let her connect with everyone she had known throughout every phase of her remarkable life, and share love and laughter … every day," Susanna Laurenti wrote. 
Her family asks those who knew Lynn to honor her memory by paying forward her kindheartedness and zest for life. "As we all struggle to move on, please carry my mother's expansive love with you," Susanna wrote. Then, "she will never leave us in any real way." 
A memorial service will be scheduled for a date in the spring or early summer when it is safe to gather once again. 
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the American Heart Association.

Published by The Palm Beach Post from Dec. 19 to Dec. 20, 2020.