Bethany Ray (Wilkinson) Salmon - Thompson |
| Posted 2008-07-10 by Judy Wight Branson |
| Daily Courier, Prescott, Arizona Wednsday, July 9, 2008 Bethany Rae Wilkinson Salmon Thompson was born Sept. 28, 1956, in Lander, Wyo. She left this world with as much grace as she had lived on June 28, 2008, following a remarkable six-year battle with breast cancer. Our girl spent much of her growing-up years on the Wilkinson’s Red Canyon Ranch near Lander. As a youngster she was quite athletically competitive. At a time when most women’s sports were just beginning to gain popularity and status in the U.S., Beth was named the first Lander Valley High School Female of the Year for her sports abilities. She was awarded an athletic scholarship to Metro State College in Denver, Colo., where she played softball as well as volleyball. Her volleyball team garnered national champion honors twice in the 1970s. In 2004, the team was honored with induction into the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II Hall of Fame. Beth lived in Prescott for several years, working as a pharmacy tech at YRMC and with Dr. Kravitz in his Pulmonary Center as a lab/x-ray tech. She became an avid long-distance bicyclist, competing in women’s bike racing. As always, she was quite competitive, and very strong. She belonged to a coed bicyclist group in the Prescott area, but as one of her friends described her, “She rode with the boys!” This group thought nothing of biking over the moun-tain to J e r ome for breakfast. And she also played in Prescott’s two-person coed volley-ball league, considered an extreme sport at that time. She moved to Phoenix, and in 1990 married Bill Salmon. Although the marriage was short, their friendship lasted a lifetime. In the early 1990s, Bethany moved to Oregon, where this landlocked Wyoming child discovered and embraced the two loves of her life – the ocean and husband Dan Thompson. She fished commercially for tuna one season; sailed as crew aboard the tall-ship Lady Washington up the Oregon Coast; and worked in the operations department at the Port of Brookings Harbor. She also worked as a phlebotomist at the Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City, Calif., and its clinic in Brookings, Ore. Bethany and Dan loved their sailboat, and they also did quite a bit of motorcycle riding – Beth on her own motorcycle, of course. She was also quite adept at jewelry making and oil painting, and always had at least one book going. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, and the usual therapies of radiation and chemotherapy appeared to be successful in baffling the disease. In 2004 Beth served as Grand Marshal for the Brookings Relay for Life. The couple sold their home, bought an RV, and for the next several years in between treatments roamed the West, visiting friends and family and doing and seeing new and different things. However, Beth’s cancer was insidious and unrelenting. In the past year she underwent treatment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah, staying with her brother and his wife. When the time came, on June 19, she chose their home for hospice care. She died quietly at 6:14 p.m. June 28, with her family gathered together by her side. Survivors include her husband Dan of Brookings, Ore.; daughter Cammie Edson and husband Jack of Longmont, Colo.; parents JT and Jan Wilkinson of Prescott, Ariz.; mother Barbara Larrmore; sister Julia Wilkinson; half-brother Jason Larremore of Lander, Wyo.; brother Brad and wife Laurel Wilkinson of Salt Lake City, Utah; stepbrothers James and wife BJ Jibben of Cheyenne, Wyo., and Jared and wife Ha Jibben of Fountain Hills, Ariz. Also surviving are several aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and cousins. She was preceded in death by her brother Bart and her grandparents Bill and Evalyn Wilkinson, well-known Wyoming ranchers, and Tom and Doris Larremore. Celebrations of life are planned in Lander and in Brookings. Remembrances may be made in Beth’s name to the American Cancer Society. She is a wonderful soul and we are eternally grateful to have known and loved her. Information provided by survivors. |
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