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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Karin Campbell

Anita grew up in an Air Force family traveling and living in Okinawa, Europe and the United States. The last assignment brought the family to Bergstrom AFB in Austin, Texas where Anita enrolled at Westwood High School.

Anita always had a fascination with planes and air travel. Dating back to earlier years when her dad took her out to the flight line during "take your child to work day". This carried over to her high school years where a date with her boyfriend meant they would go to the airport and watch planes fulfilling her passion for flight.

After graduating from high school, she became a flight attendant with Delta Airlines. After a year with the airlines, she enrolled at the University of Texas and she graduated from UT with a Bachelor of Science in Speech, and worked with IBM in Austin.

Anita had a special fondness for horses, and loved her position as membership coordinator for the Texas Thoroughbred Breeders Association in Austin. During that period, she met her future husband and they married in 1992. Her daughter, Kaitlyn, was born in April of 1994, but only 18 months later, Anita was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. With a true fighting spirit, she emerged from this first battle with cancer and returned to work.

In 1997 the tumor reoccurred and Anita again underwent surgery and she began a long and very difficult 20-month experimental chemotherapy trial. In March of 2008, she had a major setback and was in a coma for 20 days. Anita ultimately lost her ability to walk, talk, or eat, and remained at Park Valley Inn until she passed away on April 24, 2012.

Anita was deeply loved and cared for through her many long years of devastating illness by her totally devoted family. Although in the last year and a half of her life, Anita could no longer communicate in words; her soul filled spirit touched everyone who knew her.

Anita's determined spirit kept her going and set goals for her beloved daughter, Kaitlyn. She had expressed long before that she wanted to live to see Kaitlyn turn 18, have her driver's license, and graduate from high school. Last Sunday, her Dad, Ron, reassured her that she had now achieved all of those and one more........Katie was now going to college. He said that she looked at him very clearly and knowingly, and then her face became absolutely radiant with smiles. She then looked above and beyond him, and reached up her hand as if she was reaching for the Light.

Everyone not only called Anita an Angel.........she is an Angel who was in our midst for a little while. She suffered greatly.......but fought so valiantly and expressed love so deeply. She finally, and very quietly, broke the bonds of her earthly body and found her wings to fly Home to the Lord and God she totally trusted and loved with all her heart and soul. Those who knew and were touched by Anita will always be so grateful for such an extraordinary gift of grace in our lives.......Amen.