Sherry Lee Enrico

Sherry Lee Enrico was a gifted graphic artist, photographer, food stylist, landscaper, interior decorator, world traveler, humorist, humanist and devoted wife. She passed away on June 18, 2026, from complications with surgery for Crohn’s disease.

She was born August 7, 1947, in Morgantown, West Virginia. At the age of three, she moved with her mother, Edna Hamric and her father, Ernest Hamric, a metallurgical engineer, to Flint, Michigan, where Ernest accepted a position with Buick Moors. In school she excelled in art and in high school she worked at the Flint Public Library. She graduated from Northwestern High School in 1965 and attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, graduating in 1969 with a BA degree in Art and Design.

In August of 1970 she married Eugene Enrico, who had just received his PhD in Musicology at the University of Michigan. The couple moved to Saginaw, Michigan where Sherry took a position as art director for WEYI, the NBC affiliate in the Saginaw/Flint area and Eugene began his career as university professor. In 1972 the couple moved to Washington D.C., where Sherry worked in advertising design in Bethesda, MD, and Eugene took a postdoctoral appointment at the Smithsonian Institution. The following year the couple resettled in Louisville, KY, where Sherry became a staff artist for Swearingen Graphics, and Eugene became Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville.

In 1976 the couple were fortunate to find a permanent home in Norman, where Sherry accepted a position as Art Director at Ackerman McQueen Advertising in Oklahoma City and Eugene became Professor at OU. At Ackerman McQueen Sherry developed her skills in graphic design, in use of type and in managing projects. She also became an expert food stylist with such accounts as Droste Chocolate and French Food and Wine: her home refrigerator was often full of left-over cheese. During a sabbatical semester in the fall of 1989 in Washington, D.C., Sherry took a position with the Davis Ad Agency in Georgetown and Eugene worked again at the Smithsonian. When the couple returned to Oklahoma, Sherry formed her own business, Enrico Design, with such clients as Balliets, Fifty Penn Place and the Will Rogers World Airport. In 2005 Sherry accepted a position as graphic designer for the OU College of Fine Arts and the OU School of Music, where she has been continuously engaged.

In 1980 Sherry and Eugene asked the OU architect, later Dean of Architecture, Raymond Yeh, to design their dream house, for which Sherry provided the artistic inspiration, the interior decoration and the development of the landscape, based on a plan by landscape architect James Yoch. Sherry became the perfect hostess and designed every dinner party with the eye of a professional food stylist. Throughout their lives together, as Eugene followed his research thread as producer/director of public television documentaries, the couple toured extensively in Japan, China, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, northern Europe, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Croatia and especially Italy. Sherry became a master photographer, documenting her travels and her eye for beautiful vistas and details.

Sherry is survived by her husband Eugene, her sisters Brenda Kay Milligan and Mardene Smith, her aunt Lois Poole and her beloved labradoodle Henry. She was preceded in death by her father Ernest Hamric and her mother Edna Hamrick.

A Concert event to celebrate Sherry’s life will be held on September 20 at 2:00 pm in the Pitman Recital Hall of the OU School of Music, 500 W. Boyd in Norman, followed by a reception in Gothic Hall. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the OU College of Fine Arts or the OU School of Music.