Teacher, writer, and influential community member, Doris Owen Ward, 93, died peacefully Sunday Jan. 31 at Haines Assisted Living of kidney failure. Shannon McPhetres and the family dog Toby were with her. Ward moved to HAL in 2016.
Former Haines Borough manager Debra Schnabel was in the Haines High School class of 1970 that secretly dedicated the yearbook to Ward after she made them promise not to, Schnabel said. She credits Ward, her English teacher for four years of high school, with instilling in her a love of literature by challenging her to read nine books in nine weeks. ^I learned that a teacher is someone that wants the best for her students and knows what it is
^” Schnabel said.