Jenny Elizabeth Wanner, Education ’98 and a former manager of admission services at Northwestern, died May 11 of strangulation in the entranceway of her apartment on the 2100 block of North Albany Avenue, Chicago Police Department officials said. She was 26.

Wanner was born Aug. 20, 1976, in Toledo, Ohio. She graduated valedictorian of Start High School in 1994. She then went on to NU, where she graduated in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education and English from the School of Education and Social Policy.

In her time at NU, Wanner forged friendships with more than her peers. Al Parcell, an NU Food Services employee, said he remembers Wanner from his interactions with her in the dining hall of her dorm. He has kept an English paper for which she interviewed him in 1995.

“She was smart, she was quiet,” Parcell said. “Jenny was a friendly person — very likeable.”

Wanner also worked in the Office of Admissions as a work-study student during her time at NU.

“She was a very nice lady,” said Maud Smith, an admission assistant. “She could be firm but was very humble.”

After graduation, Wanner worked in NU’s Office of Undergraduate Admission. She left NU in January 2002 to work as an undergraduate admissions counselor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, located in south Chicago.

The school’s Associate Director of Admission Andrea Orm said Wanner was assigned to recruit students from the western United States.

“She was never afraid to take on a challenge in the office,” Orm said. “She was such a strong individual. She had kind of this quiet wit about her and she had this spark that just made everything fun.”

Orm said admissions department employees have developed friendships that extend outside the office. Orm said this type of office environment is abnormal and attributed the closeness of the workers to “people like Jenny.”

“She was such a dynamic person,” Orm said. “Monday through Friday just wasn’t enough. I just can’t really put it into words.”

Wanner is survived by her parents, Gary and Cathy; brother, Jason; and grandmother, Rose.

Visitation was held Friday at the Ansberg-West Funeral Home in Toledo and funeral services were held May 17.