Donna Mae Campbell

1944 - 2019

On August 29th, 2019 Donna Campbell, 75, resident of the Arcadia area of Phoenix for 40 years, and mother of one, died at the Hospice of the Valley care center of Friendship Village in Tempe due to the effects of lung failure from COPD/ emphesyma. She had been admitted nine days earlier, and aside from a short stay the previous month had managed the disease and lived independently up to that point. Loving assistance from her sister Dianne Cobb and friends Jennifer Kimball and Shirley Baker helped in this regard tremendously throughout 2019. Donna fought the good fight as an advocate for public school teachers through a 38-year career with the National Education Association (NEA), and later the Arizona Education Association (AEA), and finally with the Arizona State Board of Education as Director of Professional Development, from which she retired in 2005.

Born on February 8, 1944 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, she was the second daughter of the family of Lee H. and Adelyne M. Campbell (nee Ogg), who were also both from Minnesota. Aside from her paternal grandmother, who immigrated from Sweden, her parents' people had been in America hundreds of years. Donna graduated with a BA in Humanities in 1967 from the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis. Her trailblazing independence led her never to marry, but from her relationship with John Dunn (1926 - 8/2/2019) a ceramist and art professor from England she had a son, Kylen Campbell (Oakland, California). She raised him on her own.

Her work as a union organizer and uniserv director with the NEA took her from Washington, D.C. to Indiana, Seattle, Montana and Denver within six years. Along the way she and later she and her son collected fellow wonderful people into a far-flung but close-knit tribe. In 1979 she switched from national to state work with the AEA, settling in Phoenix in August that year, calling it home until the end. She offered anyone who would notice an out of hand respect that led to friendships which sparked all toward more vital and engaged versions of themselves. She and her friends made each other laugh. For years. Her interest in enabling everyone in society to live and participate in this great and amazing democracy of ours translated to an informed and active interest in politics. She was elected to and served multiple terms on the Scottsdale School Board from the mid-80s to the mid-90s and received honors from the Madison School District as well.

A voracious reader, over the last 25 years she loved mysteries in particular. And over the last few years consumed British TV mystery series with the same passion. Her son considers her library one of her most important legacies.

She delighted in her two grandkids, 16 and 13, completely. It's not overstating it to say she lived for their three annual visits with their dad to see her. They, along with all of the amazing, loving friends still living whom she admired and cherished dearly will miss her madly, madly—and will miss her forever.

In addition to her son and grand-kids, Donna is survived by her elder sister and two nephews, three nieces and another nephew via her late younger brother George F. Campbell, ten grand- and great-grand nieces and nephews and more than a dozen cousins on both sides around the country.

Donations can be made to the Arizona Democratic Party or the Democratic National Committe (online at https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ or https://www.azdem.org).