Sally L. Dewey

is honored with a Brick from David W. Dewey.

Every work I ever did taught me something. Sometimes I learned by doing the task well, sometimes by making mistakes. During college I sold overalls at the local dry goods store, and worked split shifts at the phone company. In my senior year I worked at the children's home setting up a preschool program. By the time I was 20, I'd finished undergrad at WSU and was teaching first grade and elementary music. Flashbacks from those early jobs still come to me....

My father said to me, "Honey, learn to type." Well, I'm still working on that particular one, but he was right. Learn to do everything you have a chance to do....

Along the way, I had some very lucky breaks. I was able to spend a year in Germany studying voice and opera. When our children were growing up, I taught voice and piano privately, enabling me to rear my children at home, a blessing! Always say yes to opportunity, even when you have to make it yourself.

When our large family was grown, our huge historic house renovated, and after many years of volunteer work of every kind, I dabbled in local politics....the most important level. Serving a term on the Wichita City Council was the best and worst of experiences.

Working now for InterFaith Ministries has opened yet another world for me. Spending an afternoon with my peers, nice happy Methodist women, mothers and grandmothers is a pleasing joy. Getting to know men and women of other faiths, backgrounds and tax brackets is heady stuff, laughing, crying, stretching.

Life happens to us. We can guide our destiny only so far. I believe Life is that banquet, no one has to starve! My advice to the young is "Try it, do it, enjoy it!" There are a few things we never like to do, but not very many. Work is the stuff of life. Be open to learning everything you can as you make choices. Travel anytime you can. Keep a book going in every room. Be flexible as you go, or you might miss the greatest opportunity of all. AND....laugh a lot, beginning with yourself as target.

Oh, Lord, Your greatest gift to us is our very lives. Grant that we acknowledge this truth, and love our lives, enjoy them, learn from them, and allow, yes invite Your Holy Spirit to guide us through them, with thanksgiving!

Sally Lambert Dewey
Born: Wichita, Kansas, October 4, 1932
Graduated: Wichita High School East, 1950 Wichita University, 1954, BA in Education.
Graduate work: Washburn University Voice and Opera Aschaffenburg, Germany with Ria Kail-Wartush
Married; David Dewey, June 21, 1954
Five children: Jeffrey, Sarah, Benjamin, Nellie, Forrest eleven grandchildren

Public school teacher, five years; private piano and voice teacher, forty years; directed church choirs, twenty-five years

Served one term on the Wichita City Council
Directed Operation Holiday with Inter-Faith Ministries, eight years

President of: Midtown Citizens Association; Mu Phi Epsilon; Project Beauty; Wichita Bar Auxiliary; Symphony Women; First United Methodist Women; Dean's Advisory Council, College of Education, WSU; American Association of University Women; Wichita-Sedgwick County Arts and Humanities Council; and Executive Women's Forum

Enjoy: special days with grandchildren, cooking gourmet, singing soprano.

July 7, 1998