Last spring, Sue Luescher hosted the inaugural River Talk storytelling program at the Chilkat Center. The first River Talk of this season was held two days after her death on Jan. 13. She was 56.
Luescher died at her second home in Reno. Friend and fellow theater booster Lorrie Dudzik explained to the audience Jan. 13 that Luescher suffered pancreatic cancer since 2011. The arts and outdoor enthusiast moved to Haines with husband Dennis Geasan in 2006.
“Sue was one of those people who walked in and you noticed, she had it, whatever it was, you might call it charisma. She lit up a room. All I know is that I was the lucky guy that got to live with her for 35 years,” Geasan said.
“Sue decided after she was diagnosed with cancer to become really involved in new things,” Lorrie Dudzik said. “Sue tried out for ‘Oklahoma!’ It was her first show, as far as I know, and she loved it and did a good job.”
Luescher also joined the Lynn Canal Community Players board and began promoting the Chilkat Center for the Arts. Besides attending performances, Luescher convinced the troupe to launch River Talk after attending a similar event in Juneau.
A landscape architect, Luescher worked on the planning of Picture Point Park. She joined in the Sheldon Museum’s weekly hikes, served on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee, and supported the creation of the Chilkat Beaches Recreation Area, where she liked to walk with Geasan and their dog, Luna.
“I was always happy to hike with Sue. She was so upbeat and enthusiastic about everything, even if it was a lousy day,” said neighbor Carolyn Ganner. Her husband Tom Ganner said he would miss meals Luescher shared with them. “She did great fondue dinners. She brought us spearmint tea she grew. She was just a lovely woman.”
Susan Ruth Luescher was born to Margaret and Jim Luescher on March 23, 1958 in Oakland, Calif. The family moved to the Reno area where her parents, who are from Switzerland, owned the Mount Rose Ski Resort and where she became an expert skier.
After graduating from Reno High School in 1975, Luescher traveled to Switzerland to stay with relatives. She hitchhiked around Hawaii, worked on a Canadian fishing boat, and traveled the Lower 48 with her brother before returning to Reno and earning a geology degree from the University of Nevada.
She met and married Dennis Geasan there and worked as a geologist in the Nevada desert. In 1990, she opened a computer graphics and drafting business. In 2001 she received a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Cornell University. She continued her career in Boulder, Colo. and then Anchorage, where she lived three years before moving to Haines. She said Haines reminded her of Switzerland on the sea.
Luescher often captained the boat she owned with her husband and friends. She subsistence fished for sockeye, shrimp and crab and gathered mushrooms and berries.
Her vacations included a two-week hike around the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps in 2013. She also took annual adventures with her mother and sister.
The last four years were a life lesson, Geasan said, sharing a eulogy by Reno friend Vicky Oldenburg. “Sue was teaching us all to take that trip, do that hike, catch that fish, and spend your precious time with the ones you love. If she desired something, there was no standing in her way. She always had to be the first, whether it was to the top of a mountain, the bottom of a ski run, or getting her two cents into a conversation.”
In addition to her husband, Sue Luescher is survived by parents Margaret and Jim Luescher of Reno; siblings Rosie Huff of Reno and Dennis Luescher of Maine; nephews Jackson, William, and Weston Buck of Reno, and a large extended family.
Private remembrances will be held in Haines and Reno. Memorial donations may be made to the Chilkat Center for the Arts online at http://www.chilkatcenter.org/sue or PO Box 464, Haines, AK 99827.