Sharon Rose Dickinson

Sharon Rose Dickinson was born April 29, 1941, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was preceded in death by husband of 50 years, Jerry Donald Dickinson; and parents, Clarence Elbert Hillman and Mildred Ruby Hillman; and by a baby brother, Clarence Elbert Hillman, Jr., who died of pneumonia at the age of three months in February 1943. She was the oldest of three children and is survived by her younger sister, Patricia Ann Hensley, niece Janice Hensley, and nephew Charles Hensley. At the age of six months, just before Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II, Sharon and her parents moved to Wichita, Kansas, the home of Boeing, Beech, and Cessna, where her father went to school to train and work in the aircraft plants. When the war ended and the soldiers returned home, her father was laid off from the plants. So, he started an auto parts business and traveled over the state of Kansas. That resulted in the family frequently moving around as his route expanded. It also resulted in Sharon not being able to finish a whole year of school in one place. She started kindergarten in Wichita, but finished it in Junction City, Kansas. She started first grade in Junction City, but finished it in Keats, Kansas. She started second grade in Keats, but finished it in Silver Lake, Kansas. She started third grade in Silver Lake, but finished it in Wichita when they moved back to Wichita for her father to once again work for the aircraft factories after giving up his auto parts business. Once settled back in Wichita in 1949, she and her sister went to school in a one-room school house with all eight grades in one room. It was way out in the country and the only known one-room school left in the area at the time, and her father managed to find it!! Sharon was in the second half of the third grade and was unfortunately the only student in the third grade at that one-room school. She was, however, very quickly promoted to the fourth grade based on her report cards from past schools as well as testing and evaluation by the current teacher. From then on, and all the way through high school, she was always a grade ahead and the youngest one in her class. She graduated high school in 1958 from Wichita High School East and was in the upper I0% of her class of over 700 students. Upon graduation, she worked for Southwestern Bell telephone company for two years. In 1960, she started college at Abilene Christian College, Abilene, Texas, and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science in Education with a double major of Business and Education and a minor in Bible. She also did graduate work through North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, in the 1980's. In the fall of 1964, she moved to New York with a missionary group and started teaching school at West Babylon High School on Long Island, New York. During that year, she was on an early shift at school and would quite frequently drive into New York City and safely park at the Manhattan Church of Christ on East 80th Street. From there, she walked down Madison Avenue and right into CBS Television at 595 Madison Avenue. They immediately interviewed and tested her, the final result being she had a job waiting for her once she finished her teaching year at West Babylon. At CBS, she worked in the Advertising and Sales Promotion department and was fortunate to meet several "stars," including The Hogan's Heroes, a popular CBS show at the time. She has an autographed picture of them with personal notes written to her by each of them. After two years in New York, she was very home sick and returned back to Kansas and eventually went to Dallas and interviewed with Hunt Oil Company and was hired to work in the office of H. L. Hunt. It was there that she met Jerry Dickinson. They were married April 8, 1967. Hunt Oil had a policy at the time that married couples could not work together, so Sharon left and eventually resurrected her teaching career in 1975 at David W. Carter High School in Dallas where she remained until retirement in 2003. During her time at Carter High School, she served as Department Chair of Career and Technology Education; was the Office Education Coordinator and placed students on jobs all over the Dallas Metroplex area; taught computer labs; and wrote curriculum at the district level. She was also a presenter of numerous workshops at both the district and local campus levels and helped usher in the computer age for both the teachers and the students in the Business Education classrooms. Some of her recognitions included: 1985 = Golden Oak Award for Outstanding Teaching from the Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce, Dallas, Texas. 1998 = Recognized by district peers and leaders for authoring two editions of "Dallas Oil, Inc., published by South-Western Publishing, Cincinnati, OH. She used a portion of the royalties to establish the Business Co-op Teacher's Scholarship Fund, later renamed by her peers as the Sharon Rose Dickinson Scholarship Fund. For many years, she served as a presenter of the scholarships at the annual awards luncheon. 2002 = Recognized by the State of Texas Secondary Commission for serving as a member of the Southern Association Accreditation Peer Review Team for Mesquite High School, Mesquite, TX. Most importantly, Sharon was a person of faith. At the time of her passing, she was a member of the First Baptist Church in Lancaster, Texas. When Dan Griffin became pastor in 2013, he challenged the congregation to read through the entire Bible. Sharon and Jerry both took that challenge and over a few months read completely through the entire Bible from cover to cover. A celebration of Sharon's life will be at 1:00pm on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at First Baptist Church of Lancaster. A private interment will take place at a later time.

Tributes

Sharon Rose Dickinson

April 29, 1941 - February 15, 2025