Wanda Ruth (Wheeler) Beard died Aug. 18, at Warrensburg Manor in Warrensburg.

Services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, at First Baptist Church of Warrensburg with Rev. Pete Beard officiating. The family will receive friends 6-8 p.m. Friday Aug. 24, at Sweeney-Phillips and Holdren Funeral Home in Warrensburg.

Wanda was born on Nov. 15, 1934, in Gray Ridge, Missouri, to Ernest and Violet (Brinson) Wheeler. She attended elementary through high school in Gray Ridge and through the inspiration of her high school home economics teacher decided to attend the University of Missouri in Columbia where she graduated with a BS in Vocational Home Economics in 1956.

She often recalled working as a cotton share cropper to help pay for her first year of college. It was during her college years that she was nominated and won the “Maid of Milk” competition for the southeastern region of Missouri.

Wanda married Harold (Pete) Beard after graduation from the University of Missouri June 2, 1956. They moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where her husband attended seminary and she taught fifth grade at Mary D. Hill School from 1956-1960.

She then became a stay-at-home mom for the next nine years when the family moved to Nashville and then Knoxville, Tennessee. She was also of great assistance to her husband in each of these locations where he served as a campus minister at Vanderbilt and the University of Tennessee. She was often the emergency cook on the mainstay for some special event.

Wanda had two children, John Mark (Oct. 24, 1960) and Jayne Ruth (Nov. 2, 1963.) She returned to teaching fifth grade at Flennigan Elementary School from 1969-1972. After moving to Warrensburg in 1972, she did substitute teaching in Centerview before accepting a position as the Home Economics teacher at University High in Warrensburg where she taught from 1974-1977. In 1978, she was invited to teach at Central Missouri State University in Vocational Home Economics, a position which she held until retirement in 1997.

While there she taught a variety of courses including methods of teaching home economics, foods and nutrition, family living and clothing construction. For most of those years she was the faculty advisor for the student organization in home economics and supervised teachers in training vocational home economics.

During these years of teaching, she completed her MS in home economics from CSMU and the Specialist degree in Home Economics Education from the University of Missouri. Wanda was recognized as a very accomplished teacher in home economics and was also very active professionally in Missouri State Teachers Association, once serving as president and other local and national organizations in Family and Consumer Sciences.

She was active in the local Parliamentary group for many years. She was also a member of the FBC of Warrensburg and the Women on Mission organization of the Church. Her family shares many memories of her.

They remember the long hours, sometimes days, of caring for the children when Pete was away. They remember she enjoyed hiking in the Smoky Mountains, her preparation of meals for the BSU students at the University of Tennessee, skiing down the slopes in Colorado, fishing at Bennett Springs and cooking on six Jamaican mission teams and her gardening and canning. Perhaps her kind attitude and consideration for others in all difficult situations was one of her most notable personal characteristics.

Wanda is survived by her husband, Harold Pete Beard; her son, John Mark and wife Bobbi of Seattle, Washington; her daughter, Jayne Ruth Brockhaus and husband, James of Warrensburg; step-son, William Preston Wiest and wife Megan, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri; brothers, Robert Wheeler and wife Faye of Flint, Michigan; Wilbur (Sonny) Wheeler of Essex, Missouri; six grandchildren, Bailey (Brockhaus) Grinde of Raeford North Carolina; Erin Brockhaus of Warrensburg; Anja and Daniel Beard of Seattle; and Preston and Luke Wiest of Lee’s Summit.

She is also survived by a number of nieces and nephews. Wanda was forever the “great cook,” a good seamstress and dedicated wife and mother.

She could take any social event, plan it, prepare the food and bring it off with grace and style. Her greatest teaching was likely done in her own home and among her own children. She would have considered her devotion to God, her husband and being a competent mother and grandmother as her greatest accomplishments.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the First Baptist Church building fund or the University of Central Missouri Foundation and can be left in care of the funeral home.