Sharon Travis

Sharon was born June 26, 1945 in Fernandina Beach, Florida. She began her teaching career at Emma Love Hardy Elementary School in Florida. While teaching there, she met the love of her life. After marrying, she taught there for an additional year before moving to Longview in 1968. Sharon taught one year at Gay Elementary in Gladewater, and then had to resign because she became pregnant. She then substituted at area schools before being hired at White Oak Elementary School in 1973 as a third grade teacher. In 1996, she became the reading teacher for the fifth grade. While Sharon was teaching, she touched the hearts of many students. She retired from White Oak ISD in 2002. From 2003 - 2011, she worked part time at Kilgore College teaching 3 levels of reading, and was well respected by the football and basketball players.

Sharon participated with her friends in many activities such as: garden club, retired teachers, weekly card groups, and monthly Pokeno nights. Traveling was something she really liked to do. She has been to 48 of the 50 states as well as traveled to Europe several times. In her earlier years, she enjoyed fishing in husband and wife tournaments as well as fishing off the pier at her Lake Cherokee home. She loved to read and work crossword puzzles. She was known to her family as the “crossword puzzle queen.”

She is preceded in death by her parents, Ira and Mary Hall.

Sharon leaves behind her best friend and soul mate whom she was married to for 37 years, Joe Travis, her daughter and son-in-law Jennifer and Don Wilbur, grandchildren, Cody and Brooke Wilbur, her sister and brother-in-law, Suzanne and Richard Masters, her two nieces, Stephanie Corbett and Shannon Straughn and their families, and her cousin, Michael Brock.

Services will be held Friday, September 23, 2016, at 2:00 pm at Lakeview Funeral Home in Longview. There will be a short visitation before and after the service.

Because of her concern for a cure for cancer, and her dedication to children, please send donations to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in lieu of flowers.