Betty Sue Vondracek

Betty was born to John and Sue Nall Bumgarner in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on August 27, 1938.

She graduated from Tulsa Central High School. Betty studied and graduated from the University of Kansas, with a degree in Design and Journalism in 1960. She served on the KU Student Council and that is where she met her future husband, Rudy Vondracek, who was President of the Student Council.

They married in 1961 and Rudy began an executive training program in Tulsa, where son Richard was born. Next they moved with Murphy Oil Co. to El Dorado Arkansas, where son John was born and then with Ernst & Ernst to Chicago, Illinois where daughter Vikki was born. They arrived in Dallas in 1969 and Betty began her volunteer career serving as PTA President at Dan D. Rogers Elementary. Her school involvement in Education lasted through her children's high school years when she served as the President of the city-wide PTA, then co-founded Positive Parents and was next elected to the DISD School Board in 1986.

She received the Nancy Harrison Award from the National Committee for Citizens in Education (NCCE), an honor for which she was nominated by the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. The award is given annually to one person who has best increased citizen and parent involvement in public education. Betty was also named TSPRA's (Texas School Public Relations Assoc.) Key Communicator for her significant impact on public support for schools in Dallas through the following Positive Parents activities: Parents Hotline, Advertising, Realtor Speakers Bureau, Graduate Reunions and Teacher of the Year 'Apple' Awards.

For more than forty five years, Betty has been committed to community service and leadership to a large number of organizations. They include DISD, the Lone Star Council of Camp Fire, Women's Council of Dallas County, Inc., Dallas Historic Preservation League, University Meadows Neighborhood Association (UMNA), Dallas Arboretum, Mes Amies, Dallas Chamber of Commerce Education Committee and the American Heart Association.

Betty has been awarded the Texas AHA Dwight D. Eisenhower Lay Volunteer of the Year Award, given annually to the Texas volunteer who has rendered continued and outstanding service at the local and state level. She served as Chairman of the Board for both the Dallas and Texas Affiliate Boards. She was most proud of the renovation of the Dallas and National AHA offices in the '90's. She was instrumental in soliciting the funds necessary to undertake these projects as well as being very involved in the actual construction and design of the Dallas office.

Betty is a professional member of ASID, American Society of Interior Designers. She is also a licensed building contractor and a licensed referral agent for Briggs Freeman Realtors. She began Bee Vee Studio in 1976 and has designed homes and offices as well as landscape projects in many areas of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

With her 3 associates she participated in The Dallas Symphony Show house for many years as well as the Scottish Rite ‘Home For the Holidays' Show house, the March of Dimes Home Tour and Christmas at De Golyer.

Next to her love of family she was compassionate about her design work. Her clients became life-long friends and many of her friends became clients. She never considered retiring because designing was her life.

Betty is preceded in death by her husband, Rudy, and their son, John. She is survived by her son, Richard Vondracek and wife Kathy, daughter Vikki Goodwin and husband Bob and her brother, John Bumgarner and wife Mary Ann and four grandchildren: Duncan, Carson, Kaitlyn and Kaden.

Memorials may be made to the American Heart Association, Dallas Arboretum or the Education Institution of your choice.