Joann Sumner Bandy

Gloria Joann Sumner Bandy, known to all as Joann throughout her life, passed away at the age of 86 at The Elevated Estates at the Edwinola on September 10th of 2025.

Joann was born and raised in Dade City on her family's orange grove near the junction of Sumner Knoll Road and the River Road, along with her sister Frankie, and her brother David. The Sumner family attended the First Baptist Church of Dade City.

Joann was a good student, played the flute and was a band member, and her favorite teacher was Mrs. McKillips.

After she graduated from Pasco High School in 1956, she attended Stetson University, where she received her undergraduate education to become a business teacher, and graduated from there in 1960. Around that time, she was introduced to Lynn S. Bandy, by his father, Dr. Olie S. Bandy, who was the principal of Pasco County High School for many years.

Lynn and Joann were married in Dade City on June 17th of 1961, and shortly after that, they moved to Maryland, to teach in the public school system In Montgomery County, though they returned to Florida for a short time in-between school semesters to attend the University of Florida for their Masters' Degrees, with Joann receiving hers in Business Administration. In later years, Joann received her CPA, and in addition to teaching business-related classes at the high school level, she had her own income tax practice for many years.

Lynn and Joann had three children – Michelle (b, 1963), Joel (b. 1969), and Alan (b. 1973).

Their marriage ended in divorce in the early 1980s, and Joann never remarried.

Joann and her son Joel moved back to Florida after she retired from teaching in the Montgomery County School System in 1999, and for many years Joann lived in Belleair Bluffs in a condo next to her sister Frankie and her husband Richard Goldsby, and their mother Ruth Hoffman.

Joann lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma, between 2012 and 2020, where her son, Dr. Alan S. Bandy, was a professor at the Oklahoma Baptist University.

Joann decided to move into the Elevated Estates at the Edwinola in July of 2020 instead of moving to New Orleans with her son Alan and his family when Alan accepted a professorship at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary that year, and she has lived in the Memory Care Unit there since March of 2021.

Joann loved to play bridge, and was really good at word puzzles like Sudoku.

She will be especially remembered for her generous and giving nature, and her fair-minded approach to others.

Her parents were Joseph David Sumner and Ruth Bernice Auton Hoffman. Her sister Frankie Wubbena Goldsby passed away in August of 2023; her son Joel S. Bandy passed away in March of 2019; and her ex-husband Dr. Lynn S. Bandy passed away in May of 2024.

She is survived by her brother, Dr. David E. Sumner of Anderson, Indiana; her daughter Michelle Gibson of Prescott, Arizona; and her son Dr. Alan S. Bandy of New Orleans, Louisiana. Alan and his wife Necoe provided Joann with her only grandchildren: Alexandra (Alex); Josiah (Siah); Victoria (Tori); Mackenzie (Kiki); and Titus.