Gay Eugenia Harris

Gay Eugenia Hightower Harris, 96, died February 16, 2026, at King David Post-Acute Care Hospital in Beachwood, Cuyahoga, Ohio. She succumbed to the complications of old age and acute respiratory failure.

Gay was born in Pine Bluff, Jefferson County, Arkansas on August 15, 1929, to John Emma Rush Hightower & Ruby Belva Adams, the 2nd child of 4 children. She was a child of the Great Depression, and her family lived many years with her paternal grandparents, James Burnace Hightower & Annie Tennessee Hartin, in their Pine Bluff home. The family moved where the work took their father. They lived in Monroe, Louisiana, the Panama Canal Zone, Omaha, Nebraska, and Sanger, California. She graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1946 but received her diploma with the graduating class at Balboa High School in Panama. In Omaha, she attended Secretarial School. When they moved to Sanger, she worked as the secretary for the Sanger Chamber of Commerce and for her father’s engineering firm. In 1951, Gay met her husband, Floyd Peter Harris. Floyd said he saw her walking down the sidewalk in Sanger. He really noticed the wiggle in her walk! There were married September 7,1951 in Fresno, California and were married 38 years at the time of his death in May 1990. Floyd was co-owner of Sanger Building Supply on Academy Avenue in Sanger.

Gay was an accomplished quilter and excelled at applique. She was a voracious reader and read her daughter Karen’s textbooks while Karen was in nursing school. When Karen graduated, Karen trained her mother to be the unit secretary at Sanger Hospital, and she took over Karen’s old job. She later worked as the medical biller for Dr. James Giovacchini in Sanger. She was a member of the Sanger United Methodist Church for many years.

Gay was predeceased by her brother, James Reid Hightower, her husband, parents, paternal grandparents, and maternal grandparents, Arkansas Senator Reuben Reid Adams & Hannah Isabelle Slaughter. She is survived by siblings, Mary Ann Paxton and John Daniel Hightower (wife Polly Ann Faller); daughters Karen Elizabeth Albright and Jennifer Gay Smith; 4 grandchildren, Brian Albright (wife Stephanie Standen Bragg), Katherine Albright Penge (husband Ted Penge), Michael Torres (wife Celeste Alvarado), & Jessica Torres Biddy (husband Chris Biddy); 6 great-grandchildren, Army Staff Sargeant Jeremy Albright (wife Marley Ballinger), Jack Joseph Roulin, Taylor Monique Torres, Lucille Jessamine “Lucy” Torres, Augustus Floyd “Gus” Torres, Charlotte Joy “Boo” Biddy, and bonus great-grandchildren, Morgan Elizabeth Penge and Maxx Aleister Bragg. She has one 2x great-grandchild, Lilith Mae Albright, Jeremy Albright’s daughter.

Gay will be cremated and buried next to her husband in the Sanger-Del Rey Cemetery, Sanger, California. The National Cremation Society will handle the disposition of her cremains through the DiCicco and Sons Funeral Home, Mayfield Heights, Ohio. For those who wish to donate in her memory, please consider your local PBS station, or any animal shelter. Service details are pending.