Elizabeth Ellen "Liz" Lucas

Elizabeth 'Liz' Ellen Lucas, longtime Juneau school teacher and community volunteer passed away on June 3, 2023.

Liz was born in Marion, Indiana to Willian and Margie Lucas on a stormy November evening. The doctor made it just in time! Her childhood was filled with a variety of activities. This Hoosier tomboy loved to play baseball with the boys after school, often getting in trouble with her mother on the late arrival home.

Summers were filled with attending a week at Methodist Youth Camp on Lake Webster in Northern Indiana and a majority with her grandparents, Will and Nellie Hiatt, on a farm near Van Buren. Grandpa Hiatt's favorite story was about having to replace some of the wilted corn plants the next morning that Liz had chopped down while weeding and then quickly put back to cover her mistake!

Her childhood also included many trips to town on the street car to visit the library and cart home as many books as she could carry. Sometimes a Hopalong Cassidy movie was allowed.

After graduating from Marion High School in 1946, she enrolled in Taylor University in Upland Indiana, earning a B.S. in Education. She worked one summer in the Firestone plant, night shift, to help with the expenses. The 4 years spent at Taylor were happy and full of activity. Meeting people from all over the world was an exhilarating experience. Added to that was belonging to a gospel trio that traveled weekends.

Liz often related how she wound up in Alaska. It seems she read a magazine ad that stood out from the rest. When Superintendent Sterling Sears in Juneau, Alaska offered her twice the amount she could get in Indiana, her acceptance letter was in the mail the next day!

The Juneau community was so welcoming and accommodating. The school board, community, parents and teachers worked together as a team. It didn't take long to realize that Juneau was her forever home.

It wasn't a secret that Liz had two passions, teaching and volunteering with AARP. She started teaching 8th grade in the old Fifth Street school and ended her career at Glacier Valley. It is remembered that Liz and a dear friend, Louise Dawson, told Bill Overstreet that they would move from town to help open the new school, Glacier Valley, but they wouldn't stay to close it!

After retirement in 1979 she began volunteering with NRTA, AARP's Educator Community. She held local, state, and national offices, including State AARP president and AKREA president.

"In our daily meeting with one another we must realize that it is only the sharing of one's self with others that we renew ourself. Only in the meeting of minds – thine and mine – do we meet and release the divine in each of us. Only as we say 'here am I' to a call for service, do we help the doing of God's will and really move toward our own selfrenewal, and our self-realization and fulfillment." Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, founder of NRTA/AARP.

Liz was very active in the Juneau community including Chapel by the Lake Presbyterian Church (member, teacher, choir and deacon), Juneau Visitors and Convention Bureau greeting visitors at cruise ships and ferry docks, City and State election boards, member of Bartlett Regional Hospital Guild, Aging Network and Juneau Commission on Aging. Liz was preceded in death by her parents, William and Margie Lucas, her sister, Phyllis Dixon and brother-in-law George Dixon, and brother William Lucas. She is survived by her sister Rebecca Hathaway (Ronald, deceased), sister-in-law Cindy Lucas, nephews Stephen Dixon (Dixie, deceased), David (Denise) Hathaway, nieces Ruth (Ronald Cress), Beth (Roger Waters), Rene' Greene and including many great and great great nieces and nephews, her very dear friend of many years, Louise Dawson and her surrogate families, Hans and Jan Mercer (Kris, Ross, Lon and Karn) and Karn and Dan Hickok (Hunter, Skylar, and Dawson).

A Celebration of Life will be held July 8, 2023, 2:30 PM at the Chapel by the Lake. Following the service, there will be a reception in Smith Hall.

Donations in Liz's memory may be made to Juneau Community Foundation, or charity of your choice.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.