Frances "Penny" Deets

1927 - 2025

Frances "Penny" Deets

May 24, 1927 - November 20, 2025

Kansas City, Missouri - Frances Pence Deets, teacher, coach and mentor, died at the age of 98, in her apartment at the Mission Chateau Retirement Community in Prairie Village, Kansas, on Thursday, November 20, 2025.

Frances, who preferred being called, Penny, her college nickname, for most of her life, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on May 24, 1927. She was a product of the Kansas City Missouri School District and graduated from East High School in 1945. She attended Kansas City Community College and then the University of Kansas where she earned her Bachelor of Education Degree. Penny went on to earn her Master of Education Degree from Columbia University in New York City.

She spent thirty-two years as a teacher in the Kansas City Missouri Public School System, with at least thirty of those years as a girls' physical education teacher and coach at Southwest High School where she retired in 1984.

During her teaching years she worked to instill in her students the importance of everyone's three best life-long friends: nutrition, exercise and hygiene. She also championed the benefits of team sports in teaching young women physical discipline and group cooperation. One of her main goals was to encourage young girls to learn a sport they could play, follow and appreciate for all their lives.

For Penny, that life-sport was golf. As a member of Milburn Country Club for over fifty years, she became an avid and accomplished golfer. Indeed, she was proud that she played her last eighteen-hole golf round at the age of 89.

Penny was preceded in death by her life-partner, Katherine E. Aye; her parents, Goldie and Earl Pence, Sr.; and her three siblings, Margaret (Mag), Earlene, and Earl (Toogie) Pence, Jr. She leaves behind many friends and many grateful former students.

Penny requested no memorial service. The best way to honor her memory might be to take a long walk, play a round of golf (if you're a golfer) or exercise for fifteen minutes. Her last words of advice to all of us: Keep Moving! (Also consider memorial donations to The Salvation Army, City Union Mission or the University of Kansas.)