Katrina Van Lomax

Katrina Van Lomax was born May 26, 1952, in Memphis, Tennessee to John Kelly Lomax and Vera Van Der Wyst-Lomax. She graduated from Messick High School in 1970 and attended the University of Tennessee where she was a member of the university’s volleyball team before graduating in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in counseling. She subsequently earned two master’s degrees, one in counseling and one in education and acquired an education administrative certificate. At some point in her twenties she married her first husband, Tim Shadden. They divorced after a few years but remained friends until his death many years later.

After working four years as a counselor at a behavioral facility for young women in Tennessee she moved to the Iron Range in Minnesota where she worked as a special education teacher from 1978 to 1982. Trina enjoyed relating stories about that time, especially about the severe temperatures during the winters. Having endured that, she decided to move to a place with warmer temperatures and settled in Phoenix where she lived until 2022. During her time there she worked for two years as an assistant principal at Ironwood Elementary school and two years as an assistant director of special education at the Washington Elementary District office, but her predominant work was the 28 years spent in the classroom teaching autistic children.

She married Stephen Lanning on April 16, 2016, at the Downtown Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and the couple settled into retirement in Phoenix until moving to Anna, Texas July 2022 where they made many new friends and enjoyed their new home.

Mourning her passing on January 21, 2026, are her husband and her cousins, Warry Lomax III, Alan (Ted) Lomax, Kenneth Lomax, Gerald Lomax, and Lynell Lomax, whom she thought of as brothers and sister more than cousins.

Trina will be inurned in the Trinity Cemetery in Brownsville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, at 11:00 AM next to her father, whom she adored. She brought light into the life of everyone who knew her, and she will be greatly missed.

May she rest in peace