Sheila was born December 19, 1967 in Albany, New York. She spent her early years in Boston before relocating to Sanford, NC where she attended Lee County Senior High School, graduating in 1985. She went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with honors in 1989. After completing a Master’s degree in Information Science from UNC in 1999, Sheila worked as a faculty member in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College in Boston, MA where she taught relational database design, research methods, and XML. She met her husband, Sam Kalat, another North Carolina native, in 1995 and they were married in 2006. In 2011, Sheila and Sam returned to North Carolina and settled in Cary.
Sheila became an active member of The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan pro-democracy advocacy group, in January 2017, and represented the League at the 2019 United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. This advocacy work meant a great deal to Sheila, and she found much inspiration in fighting for a better world. In her other volunteer work, she was Secretary of the Patient and Family Advisory Council at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital and also volunteered at the Raleigh Little Theatre, putting her sewing skills to work in the costume shop.
Sheila was kind, loyal, incredibly smart, incredibly strong, and optimistic to the end. A natural caretaker, she maintained lifelong friendships and easily formed close new friendships throughout her entire life.
Sheila is survived by her loving husband, Sam Kalat; her sister, Erika Denn McCaffrey, brother-in-law Thom McCaffrey, and niece Rosie McCaffrey; brother-in-law David Kalat, his wife Julie Stapel, and their children Ann Stapel-Kalat and Max Stapel-Kalat; sister-in-law Robin Kalat Floyd, her husband Rick Floyd, and their children Liam Floyd and Ophelia Floyd; her father-in-law James Kalat and his wife Jo Kalat; her mother Barbara Logue and stepfather Terry Logue; her father Robert Denn and stepmother Patricia Denn; countless dear friends, and beloved kitties Toby and Chatty, and Zaphod the turtle. All throughout her life, and even in her death, Sheila was, and is still, so loved.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in her name to The League of Women Voters (lwv.org) or Raleigh Little Theatre (raleighlittletheater.org).
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