Dolores Mae Howard Connett died September 14 in her sleep at Sunset Vista, home for assisted living, in Silver City, NM. She was born in Kansas in 1935, the daughter of Letha Mae and Cecil Raymond Howard.
Dolores, a long-time resident of Kansas, spent her entire career as a teacher and practicing artist. She graduated from Mulvane, Kansas High School before attending Emporia Kansas State Teachers College, earning her degree in Art Education. With a Master of Arts degree from Wichita State University, she taught art for eight years in the Wichita Public Schools before taking a position in the Art Department of Friends University, where she served for twenty-five years. During her tenure there, she served as Department Chair of Art, Music, and Theater. In 1991, she moved to Hutchinson Kansas Community College where she was Chair of the Fine Arts Department for eleven years. Retiring to Silver City, Dee, as she preferred to be called, worked for a time on the Mimbres Region Arts Council and the Grant County Community Concert Association.
As an artist, Dee was proficient in drawing, painting, printmaking, silversmithing, and computer graphics, an area which she introduced and excelled in. Her art was shown in many mid-west and national exhibits, as well as shows in Canada and Korea, and is included in numerous private collections. Several of her detailed ink drawings were reproduced for publication covers, such as the Friends United Meeting Quarterly, and one of her more recent computer prints was on the cover of a Mimbres Region Arts Council Print Collection, a portfolio of prints by twenty-five local artists.
Dee loved traveling, often leading or chaperoning university student groups or traveling with friends throughout the United States and Europe, visiting England and Italy several times. She especially liked England where she imagined she saw family resemblances in the exhibitions at the London National Portrait Gallery. In retirement, she explored Germany and Austria, went up the North Pacific coast to Alaska, and traveled to Puerto Rico, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico.
She is survived by her brother, Cecil Howard, and his wife, Marilyn Johnson Eaton Howard, of Silver City, her niece Analia, of Silver City, and nephew, Japheth (Alice James), of Alberta, Canada, and their children, Cyrus and Estella. Meg Topmiller was a special friend in Silver City.
Cremation has been entrusted to Baca’s Funeral Chapels.
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