Bonnie Carol Reiter of Socorro, New Mexico passed away peacefully in her home on July 30, 2026, surrounded by her loved ones. Bonnie bettered the lives of countless people. She shared her many skills to create environments in which children, her family and her community thrived.

Bonnie was born July 5th, 1944 near Buffalo, New York to Francis Leroy Lias and Georgia Matilda Shuster. She and her brother Thomas were raised in East McKeesport, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. As a child, Bonnie suffered twice from rheumatic fever, and it was during her year-long convalescence from each of these bouts that she cultivated her natural gift for drawing, and a trajectory towards the arts. She attributed her self-described “clumsiness” in part to those two years of being mostly bed-bound during such critical stages of development. However, there was no question that what Bonnie may have lacked in athleticism was more than made up for in her extraordinary artistic skills.

Bonnie started college at Indiana University, but shortly into her time there, she went on a blind date with a University of Pittsburgh physics undergraduate named Marshall. Marshall shared Bonnie’s drive, curiosity and caring, and three months later, they began their sixty-two year marriage. This led to her transfer to Pitt, and then to the University of Utah where Marshall began his doctoral studies and she completed her Bachelor of Art degree.

The West was where Bonnie belonged. Having grown up in western Pennsylvania’s rolling hills and long, gray winters, the open skies and breathtaking scenery of Utah’s Wasatch Mountains instantly captured and inspired Bonnie’s artistic heart. Bonnie always recounted with deep fondness the time she and Marshall spent exploring these majestic mountains. “We had no money, but it didn’t matter”, she said. The mountains provided riches beyond measure for both of their souls.

A move for Marshall’s advisor led them eastwards again to Virginia Tech, where she completed her master’s degree in education and Marshall completed his doctorate. Her love of the west remained, however, and when Marshall secured an assistant professorship at a small college called New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico, she was “all in”. This would be her last move, and Socorro is where she would live and love for the next fifty-six years. Bonnie and Marshall raised three children in Socorro, and they found immense joy living in New Mexico. They immersed themselves in its unique beauty, and instilled that love in future generations. Many of Bonnie’s most beautiful paintings reflect the serenity found in shared hikes with her loved ones.

Their children, Nathan, Matthew and Kimberly, are truly blessed to have grown up in the light of Bonnie’s superpowers of unconditional love, patience, and support, enhanced with infinite creativity and energy. Bonnie always stated that motherhood was her first and favorite career, and she poured all of her gifts into this role. From award-winning Halloween costumes to custom bedroom wall murals revealed on birthdays, she was uniquely able to make everything special. With her, otherwise mundane tasks became

fun. Almost magically, she could transform her child’s approach to the burden of a mandatory school project into one of inspired creativity. Never underestimate the power of cardboard, glue and what may otherwise be considered junk from a “stuff” drawer to bring a reluctant child to a state of enthusiasm. Mandatory geography or history assignment? Pull that globe off the shelf and let’s spend the evening talking about the people who lived and worked there. “Can you imagine what it must have been like?”, she often asked. Think that desert mountain is just brown? Look closer, and notice the blues, the reds, the yellows, and all the secondary colors they comprise in blends, shadows and highlight. Bonnie demonstrated the joy that comes with depth of exploration. She embraced the processes that led to the end results. She cultivated empathy and a belief in the inherent value of every human being through deliberate consideration of, and genuine interest in different perspectives.

Bonnie’s own children were not the only ones to benefit from her loving creativity and ability to inspire young minds. She embraced her role as a teacher for generations of children, and she derived immense joy from her work with all her students. She believed in the potential of every child, and she cherished bonds that she formed with students who may otherwise have faded into the crowd. She reflected with delight and pride on fantastic poems, works of art, essays, and projects in which her students had given it their all. Guiding the 11- or 12 year-old brain from the mindset of “schoolwork” to eagerness and enthusiasm is no small feat, but she accomplished this time and time again through genuine caring and intense dedication. More than a decade after retiring from teaching, she reveled in describing how thoughtfully selected books like “The Outsiders” engaged and enlightened her hundreds of middle school students.

For nearly two decades, she shared her talents with the Socorro Community Theater. Her array of artistic gifts, culminations of weeks of tireless work, shone in production after production. She designed, built and painted sets, created cover art, sewed Shakespearean costumes, and even sculpted a perfect bust of an actor when a show demanded it. She took on all things unassigned that were required to run a theater group. For years, the organization’s mail came to her address. She handled finances, pored over scripts, maintained memberships, sold tickets at the door, and managed an ever-growing inventory of props, sets and costumes. Whatever their latest stage success, she’d recreate the humor of her favorite scene with irrepressible delight. As one of her fellow members wrote in a note to her, “You are the heart of SCT.”

Bonnie and Marshall’s 62 year marriage provides us all with an example of an enduring, loving partnership based on shared values, and fully complementing each other’s strengths. Together, they were “T-Bappa”, so dubbed by their youngest grandchild as a single unit, reflecting the superfluous nature of the conjunction “and” when referring to them. After her retirement from teaching, Bonnie happily joined Marshall in field excursions across the state, providing a helpful set of hands, shooing away overly curious cows and soaking up the New Mexican landscape while collecting a wealth of geophysical data. The home that she designed (and redesigned), and that they built (and rebuilt) together is living proof of their teamwork, love of learning and growing together, ingenuity, and patient perseverance. When it was time to renovate the kitchen, there was no demo day, and not a sledgehammer was to be found. Rather, they carefully disassembled kitchen version 1.0 (ca. 1972), taking each piece of hardwood cabinetry to their workshop (which they also built themselves), mindfully sanding and refinishing each piece. Over many months, they returned each of them to their new configurations, creating a modern, functional and inviting kitchen around which family would gather, bodies and hearts nourished, for years to come.

Family was the centerpiece of Bonnie’s life. As her children grew up and built families of their own, she saw to it that each homecoming was a celebration of a deep bond that welcomed each new member with open arms. She was sure to include each family member’s favorite dishes, including the vintage creamy green Jello “salad” that was so eagerly anticipated from one Thanksgiving to the next. Bonnie cherished her family’s histories, as she did all history. In a spare bedroom, she lovingly curated a museum of carefully labeled photos of past generations. Shelves of antique lamps and glassware contain handwritten labels such as “the shaving cup my grandma gave grandpa for their wedding.” She continuously updated shelves with thoughtfully-filled photo frames in her home. She was always eager to point out the latest photo of a grandchild, cousin or grandniece or -nephew and share the latest updates on their pursuits. As with so many of her "Silent Generation," Bonnie never complained or seemed exhausted by the hundreds of daily tasks she took on to enrich every life she could. Her eyes lit up each time she connected with family and friends. Shared laughter was a balm throughout her 82 years. If ever you see a carefully handwritten list of a family's birthdays and anniversaries, a well-worn newspaper clipping of the NFL season schedule with handwritten score updates, or a handmade Christmas ornament that perfectly fits its place, please smile for Bonnie.

She is survived by her loving husband Marshall; brother and sister-in-law, Thomas and Judi Lias and family; three children, Nathan, Matthew and Kimberly; daughters- and son in law, Julie, Megan and Darren; and three beloved grandchildren, Christopher, Julianne, and Benjamin.

A celebration of Bonnie's life is planned for Saturday, October 3, 2026, at 1:00 p.m. at Daniel's Funeral Home Chapel in Socorro, New Mexico.

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