POWELL, Sara Diane
POWELL
Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 4/27/2016 at 22:20:33
Obituary ~ Sara Diane Powell
March 21, 1984 ~ April 23, 2016The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Tuesday, April 26, 2016Roosevelt Elementary mourns 'very caring' teacher
by Meredith Colias
MASON CITY — Roosevelt Elementary is mourning the unexpected death of a special education teacher over the weekend. Sara Powell, 32, died of natural causes at Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa on Saturday.
To her husband Clayton, she was a steadying force. They were Mason City High School sweethearts. He was a “troublemaker” and she pushed him to graduate when his path was uncertain, he said.
“She was the rock that kept me grounded,” he said.
Powell is survived by their two children, Colton, 4, and Dylan, 1.
On Monday at Roosevelt, she was remembered as a caring teacher with a good sense of humor who loved her work, said Mason City Superintendent Anita Micich.
“This is something that you hope you never have to talk to your staff about, that it would never happen, but unfortunately, it has occurred,” she said.
Grief counselors were made available for students and staff, Micich said.
“It’s shocking. The age, the fact that she has two small children, pretty young,” Micich said.
“Death is unexpected when it comes and unexpectedly like this, I think it’s jarring, just really causes you to step back and take stock of what’s going on around you,” she said.
Powell was hired at Hoover Elementary in 2013 as a special education teacher, previously working at Garner-Hayfield-Ventura. She also briefly worked at John Adams Middle School, Micich said.
GHV Superintendent Tyler Williams said in an email that Powell was a woman who was “always happy.”
“She was a true professional and good for our profession,” he said. “She will be missed.”
“This is really about the children,” Micich said. “At this age they are affected in a different way. Some knew her and some didn’t. You try to maintain a sense of normalcy for kids, normally.”
“You have to have some levity for people, because it’s so numbing for people, I think,” she said.
Donations are being directed to the Sara Powell Memorial Fund in care of her family. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 419 N. Delaware Ave., with the Rev. Mark Lavrenz officiating. Interment will follow in the Elmwood-St. Joseph Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 5 until 7 p.m. Wednesday at Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N. Pennsylvania Ave. Visitation will continue one hour prior to service time Thursday at the church.
Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2016
Cerro Gordo Obituaries maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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