Sharilyn Baugh

Sharilyn Carol (Barton) Baugh, Christian, Educator, Wife, and Mother, most recently of Danville, Indiana, passed peacefully in her home on August 7th, 2025 at the age of 78.

Sharilyn was born March 27, 1947, in Wyandotte, Michigan, the daughter of James Doyle and Coral Barton. She had an older brother, Jim (m. Gail) and a younger brother, Leeroy (m. Karen) (Leeroy deceased 2010). Raised in Lincoln Park, MI, she and her family eventually moved to Grosse Ile, MI where she graduated from Grosse Ile High School in 1964.

Sharilyn attended Taylor University (Upland, IN), earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education in 1968 and a Master's Degree in Education from DePauw University. Years later, Sharilyn also earned an Associate's Degree in Music from Northland Pioneer College.

Sharilyn met her future husband, David, at Taylor University. They were married her senior year on December 23, 1967 at the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Park, MI.

Sharilyn worked as a third grade teacher in Avon, IN for three years before she and her husband moved to Arizona. Sharilyn then taught second grade on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation in White River, Arizona.

Upon moving to Springerville, AZ, Sharilyn took a 6-year sabbatical from teaching to have two sons, Jon and Jim. She returned to teaching elementary school while her husband attended a pediatric residency. She taught full time until her third son, Joe, was born, when she taught half-time, first kindergarten and then later fifth and sixth grade music. She was often given strong-willed and otherwise difficult students to teach. Her principal recognized her as “a velvet glove covering an iron hand.”

The family returned to Indiana after 23 years and Sharilyn became a preschool teacher at the “Snoopy School” of the Methodist Church in Danville. In 1995, she became the director of “Mother’s Day Out,” which she later successfully championed to be renamed Sonshine School, at Northview Christian Church in Danville. She retired after 16 years, having expanded the program to include before and after school care, as well as providing infant and toddler care to compliment the preschool program. Under Sharilyn’s leadership, it grew to serve over 200 children daily, employing 32 teachers and faculty. During this time, Sharilyn also taught developmental preschool classes for Ivy Tech and facilitated interested staff in obtaining Associate Degrees in Early Childhood Education.

Sharilyn loved gardening, the outdoors, reading (although if fiction, she read the first and last chapters to decide if reading the middle was worth her time…), and spending time with family. For Sharilyn, home-cooked food was a manifestation of love and she ensured her family and friends were loved. She insisted on taking a dish to any event she attended at someone’s home. She also insisted on learning everyone’s name and greeting them warmly by name wherever she met them.

Gardening was Sharilyn’s major lifelong hobby, even in Arizona where the environment conspired against her. Her eldest sons tell stories about a summer of removing tons of rocks so she could have a bigger front yard.

Sharilyn loved the beach and the sound of water, but, like her father, a Navy man, she never learned to swim. That did not stop her from a two-week family trip (with parents and siblings) in the Virgin Islands “bare-boat” sailing on a 33’ sailboat. Favorite vacation spots included Florida, Michigan, and Costa Rica.

Sharilyn enjoyed the outdoors; she canoed, camped, and rode motorcycles (both dirt bikes and street bikes) throughout Arizona, along the Pacific Coast from San Diego to the Olympic Peninsula, Fort Lauderdale to Key West, and through many Western areas of note: Glacier National Park, Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, and Yellowstone (including a canoe trip into the back country).

Sharilyn broke her leg skiing shortly before becoming pregnant with her first child and walked with one leg shorter than the other for the remainder of her life. Her full-length leg cast is tied to several stories from the time (such as sitting in the back seat of a VW bug with her leg sticking between the front seats next to a hitch hiker picked up in the rain).

It was the birth of her children which ended Sharilyn’s time on motorcycles. There were safer methods of travel; her slide under a barbed wire fence along a dirt road had made a lasting impression.

Putting away the motorcycles did not stop Sharilyn from continuing to enjoy the outdoors, including camping and fishing trips, driving through Canada and along the AlCan Highway, and visits to Yellowstone (winter and summer), Jackson Hole, the Grand Canyon, Durango, and various other national parks and places of interest. In later years, she continued to enjoy the outdoors, albeit in different ways: the Alaska Marine Highway (a ferry trip), river cruises (the Mississippi) and trains (through the Canadian Rockies to the Pacific coast), cars (a month in the British Isles), and visits to Costa Rica, including a Costa Rica trip to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary with their children and grandchildren..

Sharilyn was committed to family. She ensured her family made at least one trip east each year to visit extended family in Indiana and Michigan while she lived in Arizona. This occasionally resulted in excitement, such as when husband David had to land their small plane on frozen runways. Many trips over the years involved spending weeks with family reunions: Boyne City, MI, Costa Rica, Florida, Kentucky, and many other locations.

Sharilyn became a Christian as a child and was always involved in Church and Christian activities. She served as an elder of her church board in Arizona. She prayed diligently for her family and friends. Her final physical gift to each of her sons was a copy of her favorite Bible, with her youngest receiving her personal copy. She radiated Christian love. She finished her spiritual race strong.

Remaining to cherish Sharilyn’s memory while mourning her passing are husband David, married 57 years; sons and their spouses: Jon and Laura, Jim and Kelly, Joe and Lauren; grandchildren: Hadassah, Gideon, and Noa; brother and sister-in-law Jim and Gail; sister-in-law Karen; sister-in-law Susan; brother-in-law Joe; sister-in-law and brother-in-law Rachel and Craig; nieces and nephews Alicia and Al, Gregg and Lauren, Michael, Ramona, Steve and Vickie, Becky, Beth and Brad, Lynn and Scott, and Kelly; and numerous other extended family and friends.

Memorial donations may be directed to Samaritan's Purse; https://samaritanspurse.org/