La Quita Sue Hunteman died on July 4, 2026 following a short illness in her adopted hometown of Waynesville, North Carolina. She was born on September 15, 1941 in Garber, Oklahoma where she lived with her mother and father, Mildred and Vernon Scrheiber, and her sister Evelyn and brother George. There, La Quita decided to learn how to play piano, visiting a family friend’s home daily to practice. Her life was shared with an extended family of aunts, uncles, and so many cousins that the rest of us had difficulty keeping track. Of course, she never did, recalling each’s name and life in exquisite detail as long as she lived.

In her sophomore year, La Quita moved with her family to Edmund, Oklahoma, where she attended Edmond Memorial High School, played basketball, joined the high school band, and became a member of the Pink Petunias sorority, after completing the initiation of threading a needle at arm’s length on the first try. She attended the First Christian Church, where she began dating Bill, “off and on.” She graduated in 1959, and on June 10, 1960 married Bill, her husband for over 66 years.

The couple welcomed their eldest daughter Tambri a year later. Five years after that, they would welcome their second daughter Tracie, and five years after, their son Philip. The couple agreed that each child would receive a college education and also learn how to play an instrument, gifting to all three a lifetime of learning, filled with music and art.

She lived with her family in places as diverse as Corvalis, Oregon, Los Alamos, New Mexico, Germantown, Maryland, finally settling in Waynesville. Yet, she had no “favorite place.” She loved visiting historic places everywhere she found herself. She attended church in each town, singing in the choir (founding the church choir in Corvalis), and playing both the piano and organ for each congregation Sunday after Sunday.

She loved sewing, quilting, and crafting, and would devote herself each holiday to festooning every inch of her house with festive decorations. Most recently crafting silly hats with matching scarves to adorn “Thor,” the large tree trunk sculpture of a bear created by her brother, and which she proudly displayed with the other artworks he gave her over the years. La Quita was an avid sports fan, particularly of the University of Oklahoma football and women’s softball teams to a degree that bordered on disobedience to the Lord’s First Commandment.

La Quita loved her friends, recalling names and facts of each person with the same detail she gave to her extended family from Garber many decades ago. She would share with them countless homemade cards with her own drawings of woodland creatures. Once, she offered to host her coworkers for the office Christmas Party and made sure to decorate a Hanukkah Bush just so that her Jewish coworker wouldn’t feel left out.

She is predeceased in life by her mother and father, and by her daughter Tracie. She is survived by her husband Bill Hunteman, her daughter Tambri Hunteman, her son Philip Hunteman and his husband David Rivera, her sister Evelyn Robinson, her brother George Schreiber and his partner Cathy, and many more nieces and nephews. Each of us is profoundly saddened by her passing, but each of us is equally grateful that our lives were so enriched by the light and love that radiated from this kind, remarkable woman. She was 84 years old.

There are no services being planned at this time.

The care of Mrs. Hunteman has been entrusted to Wells Funeral Home of Wayensville.