Dylan Lyons was born and raised in Philadelphia but made Central Florida his home, when he enrolled in, thrived in and graduated from UCF.
That’s when he began his journey up the ladder of career success.
He moved to Gainesville to do what he loved — anchoring and reporting the news.
"He took his job very seriously. He loved his career. He loved what he did,” said Spectrum Sports 360 reporter and friend, Josh Miller. “He loved the community, telling the stories of people, reporting on the news, and he was just passionate about what he did."
Miller worked in Gainesville at the same time as Dylan. They were at competing stations, but they were far from competitors outside of work.
"When he was out of the news station, he was still talking about how much he wanted to succeed at his job, talking about how much he loved Orlando," Miller said.
It wasn’t just the community he worked in. The 24-year-old Dylan was someone who loved his girlfriend dearly, and equally as much, his family.
"Very close with his mom, too,” Miller recalled. “I remember on different social media posts that he would put up, how grateful and thankful he was for his mother helping him get to his point, whether it was graduating from UCF, getting into the business."
During his short time in “the business,” Dylan received an award from the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists and was a finalist for another.
A motivated and talented professional who was living his dream in Orlando, Dylan Lyons will not be forgotten.
“The amount of people that will miss him, I'm sure, I can't even come to fathom how many,” Miller said.
Dylan was shot and killed while working at the scene of a homicide investigation in Pine Hills. A 9-year-old girl was killed in a separate, but related, shooting, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Spectrum News photojournalist Jesse Walden was critically injured.
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