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Longtime Pawhuska resident Juanita (Weeks) Hamby passed away in Stillwater on Feb. 13, 2021, following a short series of illnesses.
Juanita Weeks was born June 6, 1938, in Haskell County, Kansas on the heels of both the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. She was the youngest — and last surviving — of Dea and Vera Weeks’ seven children who grew up on their western Kansas wheat farm.
After graduating from Sublette High School, she moved in with her sister in Bartlesville and attended Bartlesville Business College, where she graduated with a specialty in stenography. She landed a job with Phillips 66 and then transferred to their Washington, D.C. offices. It was there she met Larry Hamby, a Bartlesville native who was working for the Federal Power Commission. The couple married on April 1, 1960, and had two children: Carl and David. The family lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, until 1976, when they moved to New Orleans for two years before making their final move to Pawhuska on Calvacade Weekend in 1978.
For the next 30+ years, Juanita threw herself into serving others. Always a passionate reader, she helped launch the Pawhuska Literacy Council to help youth and adults learn to read. She and Larry also gave freely of their time to the local Cub Scout and Boy Scouts. After Larry retired from the Bureau of Indian Affairs at the Osage Agency, they both served as drivers for Meals on Wheels, food exchange programs, and other community-focused activities.
Juanita loved her God, her family, and her community, giving herself to them all in equal measure. She was a fixture at the Pawhuska Nazarene Church for nearly 30 years up until she moved from Pawhuska shortly after Larry passed away in 2011. In the years that followed, she lived at Saint Simeon’s Senior Community in Tulsa and later the Renaissance of Stillwater.
She is survived by son Carl Hamby and his wife Kathy Legako of Stillwater; son David Hamby and his wife Melissa Hamby of Tulsa; and granddaughters Lauren and Rachel Hamby, both of Tulsa.
At the request of the family, no service will be held, but they asked friends and community members to post remembrances via the online obituary at the Kendrick McCartney Johnson Funeral Home in Pawhuska. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial donations can be made to the First Church of the Nazarene, 407 E. 8th, Pawhuska, OK 74056, or to your community’s literacy agency, library, or Meals on Wheels program.
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