Lois Irene (Hazelton) Widvey passed away on Saturday, July 9, 2011, at 5:40 a.m. at Avera-McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls. Funeral services will be 2:00 P.M. Wednesday, July 13, 2011, at Ascension Lutheran Church in Brookings, with interment in Hillside Cemetery at Lily, South Dakota. Visitations will be from 4-7 P.M. Tuesday at Eidsness Funeral Home in Brookings. Memorials may be directed to Lutheran Social Services or to a charity of your choice. Lois was born November 26, 1933, at the Peabody Hospital in Webster, the first of three children of Ivan Leroy Hazelton and Irene Beatrice (Gebur) Hazelton, of Lily, SD. Lois attended Lily Elementary School and Lily High School, graduating in 1951 as valedictorian of her senior class. Lois enrolled as a freshman at Northern State Teachers College in the fall of 1951. She choose majors in English, History, and business education, to support her entry into teaching. After graduating from NSU in 1955, she began her professional career as an educator, teaching in the lower elementary grades and in high school at Lily, SD for 1½ years. She taught high school at Bristol, SD for 2 years. Following her marriage to Harold Widvey, June 1, 1958, she joined him, teaching junior high school and high school at Beardsley, MN for 3 years. She taught in Summit High School for 2 years and in Aberdeen High School for 6 years. During one summer when she was teaching in Aberdeen, she was awarded a National Scholarship for Teachers of English, and began her doctoral work at the University of Nebraska. She also took doctoral classes during summers and during the 1968-69 and 1969-70 school years, graduating in 1971 with an Ed.D. in Secondary Education. Lois was an Associate Professor of Education and English at William Penn College in Oskaloosa, Iowa for the 1971-72 school year. Harold and Lois Widvey moved to Brookings, SD. in the summer of 1972,and Lois taught at Brookings High School for the 1972-73 school year. Beginning in the fall of 1973, she was hired in the College of Education and Counseling at South Dakota State University as an Assistant Professor. She was awarded Associate Professor in 1978, Full Professor in 1983, and Distinguished Professor in 1998. She taught at SDSU from 1973 through 1998, when she retired the first time after the spring semester of 1998. Lois was invited back to the College of Education and Counseling in 2000and taught full and part time through 2008. She was at SDSU for 33 years and has lived in Brookings for 39 years. The years at SDSU , along with her 16 years of teaching positions at other places total 49 years. She has conducted several hundred in-service workshops during her professional career. Many during the later years focused on Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. She conducted these workshops locally, statewide, and nationally at professional conferences. She served on graduate students' committees in colleges throughout the campus and was a member of numerous college and University committees. Lois was the adviser for Kappa Delta Pi and the SDSU chapter of the South Dakota Student National Education Association. She received numerous awards for her work with these organizations, among them, Outstanding Service Awards, Outstanding Adviser, and the Most Active National Kappa Delta Pi Chapter award. She also was a member of other professional honorary organizations, including Phi Delta Kappa, Delta Kappa Gamma, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Lambda Theta and Pi Gamma Mu, holding offices at varying times. She was also a member of the subject area organizations she taught, including Teachers of English and the Reading Teacher. She edited journal articles and text books, frequently writing her own Print Lab texts for her classes. During her years at SDSU, she was awarded recognition in numerous ways. Among these were giving the commencement address at SDSU the fall of 1987, the Distinguished Professor of Education award in 1998 and several Teacher of the Year awards. The South Dakota Board of Regents awarded her the "Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Education and Counseling" title in 1998. The Governor's Professor Lois Widvey Day in South Dakota was declared to be April 29, 1998. Lois loved houseplants, nurturing some back to health when they might have died. She loved shopping and auction sales. And she was an aunt who loved her nieces and nephews and was especially pleased when her niece, Marie, brought week-old Stephanie Den Ouden to the Widvey home while Marie finished the semester. Lois is survived by her husband of 53 years, Harold; her brother Lowell (RoxAnne) of Lily, SD and her sister LaVonne (Robert) Johnson of Frederick, SD; and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents, Ivan and Irene Hazelton of Lily, SD.