Judith Ann Sanders

Judy (Judith) Ann Wells Myers Coffey Sanders, of Houston Texas passed away at the age of 83 after a long illness on December 23, 2024 in Katy Texas.  She was born on August 28, 1941 in Cambridge Massachusetts to Priscilla Evelyn Wells.  

Judy has one sister Jinny (Virginia) Paynter in Seattle, Washington, with niece Camilla and nephew Aaron and one brother Elwood Gene Myers (deceased) of New Hampshire survived by his wife Jeannie and nieces Kasey and Katy along with several cousins and great nephews and nieces.

Judy graduated from Lebanon High School in New Hampshire in 1959 at the top of her class.  She received multiple scholarships and attended Knox College in Galesburg Illinois majoring in German and Modern languages graduating in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts. She received the Ford Foundation Grant for German and Political Science in 1961.  During this time, she fulfilled one of her dreams of traveling to Europe and attended the University of Vienna on an exchange program, living with an Austrian family before returning to teach German and English in High School on Long Island, New York from 1963 to 1965.

She married her first husband so she became Judy Coffey and they moved to California where she studied Psychology at Stanford University with a Graduate Teaching Fellow from 1965 to 1967 and as part of her graduate work, provided counselling in the prison system.  She then taught German and English in Campbell California from 1967 to 1969.

In the winter of 1969, newly divorced, she arrived in Eugene, Oregon, during one of the heaviest snowstorms Eugene had experienced with 4 ft drifts. She approached the University of Oregon determined to get involved and "to do something real," she offered her skills of teaching, willingness to work without pay and sought admittance to a master’s program in Counselling.  Seeing the negative frustration, radical activism and bitterness which were high during the Vietnam war, in parallel with schools confronted with crowded classrooms and students "dropping out" Judy proposed a university student-based volunteer tutoring program for local schools. In exchange students received university credit as part of a program meant to have a positive impact in the community and for the university student volunteers to be able to implement positive change while gaining experience.  With several secondary school principals welcoming the proposal, the program won quick approval.  

This organization was called E.S.C.A.P.E. an acronym standing for Every Student Caring About Personalized Education.  By the time Judy graduated with her doctorate in 1978, one of every five graduating seniors on the University of Oregon campus had been in the E.S.C.A.P.E. Field Studies Program, which Judy was the faculty advisor for.  She designed it as a student-run volunteer program that accredited 500 students a term for pre—professional practicum experience. Highly popular with students on and off campus, over 14,000 university students were involved in ESCAPE during Judy’s tenure at the University of Oregon. 

Judy obtained her Master of Arts in Counselling in 1973 and her PhD from the University of Oregon in Curriculum and Supervision in 1978.  She developed her Inner/Outer style theory by developing the methods for tutoring and optimizing teaching in the ESCAPE program. She credits the Inner/Outer insight from her conversations with her sister Jinny, since they understood the same thing so differently and their styles were the opposite.  Through the course of the ESCAPE program many workshops and field trials were done for personality styles, and this new concept was further proven out in an effort to optimize team work, student supervision and working with elementary, secondary, high school and community groups.  

Judy was able to use the work done at University of Oregon extensively both as a family counselor and with corporate clients.  Often the application of profile skills has helped couples, and families, understand their loved one’s deeper intent more fully. Judy has written several books and was working on a book capturing what she has been teaching prior to passing away, expanding the work she did for her doctorate to include linguistic methods to determine personality styles without reliance on questionnaires assisted by her friend Mary Helen Campos.  

In the week after defending her dissertation, Judy married her second husband, so now was known as Dr. Judith Ann Sanders and together they moved to Houston Texas in 1978.   She taught Affective Education in the University of Houston initially but left university teaching in the 1980s to consult in the field of Continuous Quality Control.  They started a consulting firm SA Quality Associates which at its height had more than 30 employees. During this time, she very successfully balanced curriculum and consulting with SPC (Statistical Process Control) and PSQ (People Side of Quality) the programs she created were highly effective. In 1990 one of her coaching clients won the Malcolm Baldrige award for Quality. She was recognized as a teacher “par excellence” by Fortune 500 corporations including General Dynamics, Motorola, Vista Chemical and many others.  She retired after 25 years due to health problems related to Fibromyalgia.

From her childhood Judy’s faith was very important to her.  In Lebanon, she attended the Congregational Church where she taught Sunday school, sang in the choir and was a member of the church’s Pilgram Fellowship where she was on the state council and held multiple offices. Prayer was very important to her and in her family as a child was very insistent that this was necessary especially for important holidays.  She explored different religions after college, including Catholicism, the Jewish faith, Buddhism, and other Christian denominations.  In the late 1990s she was searching for a church she would feel comfortable in and her brother and sister-in-law, Gene and Jeannie, suggested she try their religion and so she visited the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints near where she lived.  Several spiritual experiences led her to decide to join this faith.  Initially Judy enjoyed the social aspects of the church and her first time visiting she became friends with several older ladies in their 80s who took her under their collective wing.  Suzanne Bowers, Arlee Wilhite, Dorothy Bassett and Lou Collier were all converts and had varied and difficult life experiences, but were very positive, funny and kind.  They included Judy as part of their group, meeting for lunches and discussing a range of topics from politics, religion to their life experiences. Judy enjoyed attending but was not planning on joining, until one Sunday the hymn was “Morning Breaks” which is in a very high octave for the women’s part and Judy thought to herself, “I should have known it is written by a man”.  At that moment a male voice spoke in her ear “Be still, this is my church, you have much to learn.” She looked all around but no one was close by except the senior sisters she liked to sit with who were doing their best to sing the hymn.  This and other experiences led her to being baptized by her brother Gene.  

Judy is a teacher by nature and enjoyed teaching adults and youth classes as well as seminary.  She loved learning and understanding more deeply and loved having conversations with the missionaries who often visited and formed long lasting friendships even when they returned to their homes after their missions.  

Judy loved reading especially science fiction and fantasy, Anne McCaffrey was one of her favorite authors.  She loved travel, dancing, singing, studying all types of subjects, teaching, and visiting with friends, family, strangers, she found everyone interesting and saw the good in people.
  
During her long illness and stay at the skilled nursing facility Judy was able to use her skills to have almost everyone at the facility love her and try and help her.  She enjoyed visits by family, friends and members of her church and any other religions.  The missionaries were frequent visitors as well as several very special people who are owed special thanks including Michelle Mason, Jessica McKay, Melissa Clark, Cindy Holcomb, Emily Smith and many ministering sisters and brethren who visited frequently and made sure all was well with her.  She will be missed.

Services will be held on Saturday, January 11th, 2025 at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1928 Drexel Drive, Katy, TX 77493 at 6:00 pm.  Burial is at 3:30 pm at Forest Park Southwest Cemetery, 9040 FM 359, Richmond, TX 77406.
 

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