Lauren DePoe said her mother, Mary Kay DePoe, often wearing her red lipstick and nails and black shirt, would just sit down in front of somebody and ask “Do I know you?”

No matter the response, she’d frequently say, “I’m Mary Kay DePoe, and I’ve lived here for 55 years.”

DePoe, was born Nov. 15, 1938, in Mankato, Minnesota, to Joseph and Monica Landkamer who owned a furniture store there. Her parents moved to Phoenix and DePoe grew up on Thomas Road before she graduated from Arizona State University in 1960.

DePoe died of natural causes at her Sedona home on Feb. 1. She was preceded in death by her husband, John DePoe, who died on Nov. 25, 2015, the fromer owner-operator of the Sedona Racquet Club from 2000 to 2010.

The couple met on a blind date in Phoenix in the early ‘60s and married in San Francisco in 1962. She is survived by her daughters, Susan DePoe, Lisa Shugrue and her husband, Mark, and Lauren DePoe; seven grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

“My grandma would text me every time there was a full moon and tell me what type of moon it was and how often it would happen,” Ellie Shugrue said. “She would always get so excited. She would tell me a few days before, ‘Make sure you go outside.’ The morning she passed, it was a full moon — it was called the Snow Moon. I thought that was just kind of special, because she loved a full moon. I think it was like a symbol that she’d be shining through every full moon forever with us.”

DePoe spent 41 years with Head Start, begin­ning with a short stint in Phoenix before taking over the Cottonwood program in 1979. After a decade there, she moved to Sedona to build a program from scratch, eventually settling it at West Sedona School under the Northern Arizona Council of Governments.

After also serving on the Mingus Union High School District Governing Board, volunteering at the Sedona Heritage Museum and being involved at the Sedona Arts Center, DePoe retired at 80 on May 23, 2019.

“I think Head Start is such an outstanding program,” Mary Kay DePoe said upon her retirement. “Being a center director has allowed me to be creative and manage staff in a good envi­ronment. I’ve mentored so many staff members over the years, which has been very rewarding to me. Along with the children, that’s something I’ll miss most.”

“She was 80, so she was ready to retire, but really she wasn’t, because she did get up every day and put on her red lipstick and do her red nails, which she was pretty famous for, and then she did her hair and went out and went to [local businesses every day] and was really sociable,” Lisa Shugrue said. “We are in the restau­rant business, so she would go to the restaurants and talk to all the people, and a lot of the cooks and people that work for us were in her Head Start program, so she knew everyone.”

DePoe kept up with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren through texts and social media. texting her 11-year-old great-grand­daughter every night.

“To be a strong woman, love above all else … family above all else,” Lisa Shugrue said are the values her mother instilled in her. “She was strong in faith and loyal, and when she decided to do something she stuck with it. It was important for her to be in touch with her grand­kids. That’s why there’s all the messages. She worked for those relationships.”

“Her personality was so infectious,” Ellie Shugrue said “When I was in college, my friends, if we were bored, they would say, ‘We should just call your grandma.’”

The Head Start program at West Sedona School was dissolved shortly after DePoe’s retirement, when Head Start National deter­mined the greater need was in Cottonwood, according to WSS first grade teacher Patty Falsetto, who knew DePoe for longer than 51 years.

“She always welcomed families from different backgrounds … she made herself available to anybody when it came to education,” Falsetto said. “She started an organized Head Start in the whole of Northern Arizona before anybody had even tried, and as I entered my teaching career, she was always there rooting me on and encouraging me to keep going and keep trying and keep creating.”

“She taught me compas­sion and service within the community [and] kindness,” Lauren DePoe said. “She was my guiding light. She was just a very quirky, funny lady who was curious about all people.

“She taught me compas­sion through her service. We as kids understood the Head Start program. Obviously we went to church, but she was just that mom who pointed out that you should care about others, have a conscience and be compas­sionate to other people.”