Sharolyn (Shari) Dianne Riley was a caring mother, grandmother, sister, and friend. Shari passed peacefully from this world early in the morning on the 26th day December, 2020 at the age of 82.
Shari was the first child born to Leo and Haroldyne Riley on December 20, 1938. Shari married soon after high school and started both college and a family in 1958. Family and numerous postings throughout the United States and Germany interrupted her bachelor’s degree plans which Shari finally completed in 1972, followed by a master’s degree in education.
As a supporter of her community, Shari was a longtime Red Cross volunteer as well as volunteer for Norman’s Food and Shelter. After providing a home for her family, Shari later taught middle school, coaching girls’ basketball and track, while sometimes working cattle on horseback on a friend’s ranch. Throughout her life, Shari worked in several fields and ended her working career as an account executive for the burgeoning telecommunications industry for over twenty years in the Dallas area where she managed accounts that required her to travel from coast to coast in North America as well as to far flung places like India and Malaysia. Shari loved travelling throughout her life, visiting many places such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris, Madrid, Istanbul, Delhi, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, and countless more.
As her family’s resident artist, Shari spent all of her adult life creating; designing and sewing her own clothes in the sixties, oil palette on canvas paintings in the seventies, stained glass in the eighties, quilting in the nineties, and finally transitioning to watercolors, which she continued to enjoy for the remainder of her years. Outgoing and adventurous, Shari was always willing to help anyone in need and never met someone she didn’t like. Shari’s travels and art faded as Alzheimer’s shortened her horizons, took her memories and ultimately her life.
Shari is remembered and cherished buy her two sons, Stan Wilson and his wife, Ita, of El Paso, Texas and Dave Wilson of Norman, Oklahoma, along with her three grandchildren, Mary Wilson of Orlando, Florida, Owen Wilson and Andy Wilson, both of Norman, Oklahoma, her sister, Kathleen Green and family, of Norman, Oklahoma, along with her numerous friends across the country and the world.
The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to your favorite Alzheimer’s research organization or to TenderCare Hospice of Norman, Oklahoma.
Private family services will be held at a later date.