February 17, 1942 - November 2, 2017 BETHANY A friend of mine recently wrote her own obituary. What a wonderful idea. I shall follow suit. I was born to Garnet Kunkee Lewis and L.L. "Pete" Lewis in Berea, OH, both parents now deceased. I was a proud graduate of the "truly exceptional" Class of 1960 from historic Classen High School, where I made lifelong friendships and enjoyed terrific and life forming teachers. Oklahoma City University also proved life forming with amazing teachers, especially Marianna Davenport in the Drama Department. I earned a BA in 1965 and a master's of education in 1967. All my life, I was blessed with wonderful employment. My experiences in the Oklahoma Vocational Rehabilitation program for eleven years working with both state and federal programs prepared me to enter private practice as the owner and operator of Rehabilitation Services Associates, Inc. for 30 years. Being able to help the lives of other persons with disabilities was most rewarding in so many ways. The professional friends I made in this work I count among my greatest blessings. Early on, I discovered that I enjoyed teaching other vocational counselors what I had learned, so helping educate my peers became a lifelong process of volunteering for educational presentations through the national rehabilitation associations. Each teaching opportunity was a joy. My long involvement with a group of professionals from across the nation to coauthor and publish eight professional training manuals was overwhelmingly rewarding. My respect and love for this writing group and association leaders, headed by Tim Field and wife Janet, of Georgia, has spanned decades and included writing sessions all over North America. The activity most loved by my husband and me was Square Dancing and Round Dancing (the latter is a type of cued ballroom dancing), which we continued to do four and five times a week. In addition to being fun, it was also a very healthful activity. I must give special thanks to our square dance caller and instructor for 20 years, Jeff Holley, not only a great teacher, but also a very great friend. And over on the Round Dance side of our dancing, there are two instructors and wives that became our closest friends over the years: Jim and Georgianne Couey from Midwest City and Walter and Eula Brewer from the Fort Worth area, Texas. Jim and George taught us how to dance, while Walter and Eula taught us how to put on a show. To my son, Kelly: how proud I am of the man you have become. As a child and teen, you were a "hoot" and a laugh a minute. As a father yourself now, you are great. As an adult, you have been a special support to your family. To Baron Henry Kelsay, my grandson and my superhero - remember "you are braver than you believe and smarter than you think." And to Ed, my husband of 54 years, there are not enough words to say how much I love you. You have been my strength and stability. You have always had my back. I would have liked to stay with you forever, but you always agreed I could go first. I also leave much loved cousins: Ed Reeve and his wife Blake and Jim Kunkee and his wife Sharon. And I cannot forget my two wonderful dogs who stayed with me through the last says of my life, Molly the chocolate lab, who seldom left my side, and Layla the rescued golden, who slept on the floor beside my bed and would only leave long enough to eat and "go outside." Please do not grieve for me, I have had a wonderful life! Church services for family and friends will be at 1 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 17 at St. David's Episcopal Church, 3333 N. Meridian Ave. in Oklahoma City; Mother Tracy Carroll, Vicar, will preside. A special service for the interment of the cremains and a Memorial Reception for all of Margaret's many friends and colleagues will be held Saturday morning, Nov. 18 from 10 a.m. until Noon at Reflection Pointe Cremation Garden, 10900 N. Eastern in Oklahoma City. The cremains interment service will be conducted by Mother Tracy Carroll. Note: Margaret loved her dogs and cats. In lieu of flowers, if you wish to make a donation, please consider Sooner Golden Retriever Rescue (email: info@jsgrr.org) or mail to P.O. Box 57139, Oklahoma City, OK 73157-7139; or the Heartland Labrador Rescue (www.heartlandlabrescue.com).

Published in The Oklahoman on Nov. 12, 2017

A Note From Paul Ruscha

I am so saddened to hear about Margaret’s demise, Leon.  We became close when we were in our freshman year at Classen and I found myself falling for her.  She had those arresting, exotic eyes, she smiled from ear to ear, and had a great sense of humor.  But she became serious when I professed my feelings for her.  She said that she really cared for me, but was not in love with me and we’d probably make much better friends and would last a lot longer that way than if we went steady with each other.  I didn’t like that too much, but would rather have her as a friend than nothing else, so in fact we became closer that way, as she had foretold.

During our sophomore year, I was in a terrible car accident at the fairgrounds with my friend and classmate, William Wiley.  He was killed trying to impress Pat Tull (a girl who was in our art class) with his stunt driving around the fairgrounds stadium.  Pat and I were injured, and Margaret had come to my bedside along with my best friend, John Bryan, to see me through the sadness of that event, and we all were drawn even closer.  Later on in our junior year, she and Patsy Draper became good friends, and I had developed a crush on Patsy, too.  They were two very different kinds of girls, but were a good match and I loved spending time with them both.  Patsy’s grandfather, “Faw” Draper had a summer home where we would all go swimming in his olympic-sized pool after school was out.  Margaret had a great figure, and was more of a woman than like a teenaged girl, and it was fun to wile away the summer hours with her and Patsy and John at Faw’s vacation house in the Oklahoma City outback.

Maggie, as I liked to call her, was a really good actress, and we had a lot of fun performing in the plays that were presented at school.  We were all scheduled to act in the senior year plays and musicals together, but my father passed away during the summer of `59 and because, being devout, he’d always wanted me to go to the Catholic school and I had always refused; thus my guilt finally made me drop all of my Classen perks and attend my senior year at Bishop McGuinness High School.  That was certainly a change for me, and it was a pivotal move in my friendship with so many of the Classen Class of 1960.  Anyway, I never forgot Maggie, or when I went with her to visit her mother who worked in a second-hand shop which I loved to browse, and it gave me a life-long urge to find great things in discarded items.  Maggie and I would see each other infrequently, but when we did it was always a quickly recovered friendship for us.  I’ve never forgotten her, and I hope that her family will find so many treasured memories of her, above and beyond the heavy-hearted loss of a friend so lovely… as she certainly was to so many of us.

Sincerely, and with sympathy,

Paul Ruscha