Former Rampage reporter and Fresno State graduate student, Mireyda “Mia” Barraza Martinez died from injuries sustained in a car accident on Nov. 20. She was 29.

The wreck happened on Highway 99 in Fresno around 6:45 p.m. when Barraza Martinez lost control of her vehicle and was broadsided by another car.

Barraza Martinez, a poetry student in the Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing program, was pursuing a master’s degree at Fresno State.

She had expanded her educational and literary career in Fresno, though she is from Porterville, California.

During her years at Fresno City College, Barraza Martinez was a staff writer on the Rampage. She was also a tutor with the Peer Assisted Student Sessions program on FCC campus.

PASS Coordinator Jennifer Dorian wrote in an email to the Rampage that Martinez made great contribution to the program. “She is a major pillar of our community and at CSUF,” Dorian said.

Barraza Martinez was described by the Fresno State Fine Arts Department as a “smart, strong and good-hearted person and a gifted poet.”

Barraza Martinez received her bachelor’s degree in English in 2014 and established a poetry career characterized by her passion and intelligence.

She taught an English 41 poetry writing workshop, and assisted in the Laureate Lab Visual Wordlist Studio. She was an addition to the several workforces she contributed to.

As a daughter of farmworkers, Barraza Martinez’s poetry documented her pride, vigor and strife as a Mexican-American woman.

According to Corrine Hales, a professor in creative writing in the MFA program at Fresno State, “Mia was, in many ways, the heart of the writing community at Fresno State. She brought passion, generosity and courage into the classroom, and she showed the rest of us, by example, how to live by our convictions.”

Mireyda Barraza Martinez is survived by parents, Miguel Barraza and Maria de Lourdes Martinez as well as her sisters, Marlen and Neli Barraza Martinez.

A rosary was held on Monday at Myers Funeral Service in Porterville. Also, a mass was held Tuesday at St. Anne’s Parish Church in Porterville.