Joann Boyer

Joann V. Boyer, age 96, of Rock Creek and formerly of La Grande, died April 3, 2005 at her home. Viewing will be from 10:00 a.m. to noon Monday at Gray's West & Company Pioneer Chapel in Baker City. The funeral will begin at 2:00 p.m. Burial will be at the Haines Cemetery, followed by a reception at the Haines United Methodist Church. Mrs. Boyer was born August 29, 1908, to Charles Wesley and Martha Herndon Bond at Missouri Flat. The family had arrived there by rail from Kentucky in March of that year. She grew up there and on a farm near Hot Lake and graduated from La Grande High School. She attended Monmouth and Eastern Oregon normal schools and earned a bachelor's degree in 1937 from the University of Oregon and a master's degree in 1962 from Eastern Oregon College. She taught for 28 years at Imbler, Vale, South Fork near Unity, Haines, Muddy Creek and in the English classrooms of Baker Junior and Senior High Schools.

In May 1935 she married Kenneth Boyer. They lived in Eugene and on his family's ranch in Hereford, before moving in 1942 to Muddy Creek. She spent the rest of her life in the Muddy Creek and Rock Creek communities. She taught herself to play the piano and violin, and she and her two younger brothers, Champ and Turner, formed a fiddle, guitar and banjo trio and played for local dances. While teaching high school she would calm restless students by threatening to play an old-fashioned fiddle tune.

She was a member of the United Methodist Church, the Mutual Improvement Club, the Farm Bureau and education organizations including the Baker County Retired Educators.

Survivors include her children and their spouses, Dale and Grace Boyer of Boise and Duane Boyer of Haines; six grandchildren; four great grandchildren; and other relatives. Her husband, a daughter, Dianne, and six siblings, Lester, Elizabeth Badsky, Princess Ledridge, Charles Wesley, Jr, Champ and Turner all died earlier.

Memorials may be made to the Haines United Methodist Church Building Fund or the American Cancer Society.