Jamie Lavon Christensen

Jamie Lavon Christensen, age 53, passed away on October 23rd, 2025, at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. Jamie will be remembered by many for her love for her community, her family, and her creative pursuits.

Jamie was born on January 29th, 1972, to Nancy Higdon and Brad Christensen. She was born and raised along the Gulf Coast in Mobile, Alabama. While growing up, she made multiple trips out West with her father, which inspired her to attend the University of Wyoming. She followed up her undergraduate studies to receive a Masters of Communication at Auburn University. After moving back and forth between the mountains and the South, she settled in Salt Lake City to raise a family under the Wasatch Front. She made regular trips home with her children to ensure they grew up eating fresh seafood and swimming in the Gulf.

Jamie found joy in the natural beauty of the Mountain West. She visited the Tetons of Wyoming multiple times growing up, and loved to spend time sitting on the patio at Jackson Lake Lodge with her children. After working on a film set in the Sawtooth's of Idaho, she took her family on annual trips to Redfish Lake. She treasured her time at these mountains and lakes, places where she could breathe in the mountain air and find peace in the natural landscape.

Along with her time spent outdoors, Jamie loved her creative and academic pursuits. She spent many vacations finding small used bookstores, searching for rare books and local history tomes. You could find her in library archives researching her family history, connecting census records and stories from relatives to make her ancestors come to life. Throughout most of her adult life, she taught thousands of college students the importance and art of public communication, something she saw as vital in this world: the ability to connect with others.

By far her most prominent passion was for film. It would be hard to pull her away from the screen if there happened to be a Clint Eastwood western or an old-time gangster classic on. She was a filmmaker in her own right, producing and directing a documentary about how Hurricane Katrina had impacted her beloved coastline communities on the Gulf Coast, which made it into multiple film festivals across the country. She never stopped writing stories for the screen or page, always wanting to share her vision with the world.

One trait of Jamie's that will never be forgotten is her inviting nature. This was never more apparent than at the annual Crawfish Boil she hosted for years in landlocked Salt Lake. Many people can attest to her friendliness and ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger and leave them as friends just a minute later. The Crawfish Boil became a community mainstay, bringing hundreds of people together annually to celebrate the warmth of spring, good conversations in the backyard, and perfectly boiled crawfish laid out on newspaper for all.

Above all, Jamie lived for her children: Owen, Bryce, and Addison, who survive her, and Lander, who preceded her in death. She ensured that they knew how to exhibit Southern manners, how to set out their silverware, and, most importantly, how to treat everyone with respect and kindness– just as her mother had taught her. Her life's journey wasn't without its challenges, but through every season, one truth remained constant: her fierce love for her children.

A memorial service will be held at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 21, at Southeast Christian Church, 1881 E. Vine St., Murray, UT 84121. A burial service will be announced in her birthplace of Mobile, Alabama, after the New Year.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in Jamie's honor to your local Ronald McDonald House