Sharon Lauck Walsh

After a nearly two year struggle against a rare form of cancer, Sharon left this world behind in the early morning hours of Friday, June 12th. Sharon began her journey in 1950 in Laramie, WY, born the daughter of Ben and Margaret Lauck (nee Thomas) . She grew up a smallish town girl in Laramie and graduated with the Laramie High School class of 1968. She was the first person in her family to go to college, attending the University of Wyoming and later Colorado State University, ending up with a Bachelor’s degree from Kearney State College (now University of Nebraska at Kearney). While at the University of Wyoming she joined the Gamma Phi Beta sorority and would later be, from the time she returned to NM in 1989 until her death, an active member of their Albuquerque alumni chapter.

After university, Sharon began a lifelong career as a teacher, mostly of the biological sciences but also general chemistry, earth science and general science. She eventually taught students ranging in age from middle school to the college level. Her first teaching job was at the high school in Tularosa, NM. She would eventually teach at the middle and high school levels in Rio Rancho, Albuquerque and Los Lunas as well as in Goshen Hole, WY.

Sharon was married in 1970 to Robert Luce. They lived in Nebraska, Alamogordo, NM and then eastern Wyoming when Bob began a long career at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department . In 1977 they had a son Matthew but then divorced a few years later.

In 1979, Sharon took a hiatus from teaching in Goshen Hole, Wyoming to work on a Master’s degree in Zoology from the University of Wyoming. It was there that she met her future husband, Dave Walsh, in 1980. Upon receiving her degree in 1982, she took a job at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon as head of biology laboratory instruction for a year. After that she pursued graduate studies at Idaho State University, where, in 1988, she married Dave in the Trinity Epispocal Church of Pocatello.

In 1989, the family relocated to Albuquerque, NM when Dave took a job at Sandia National Labs. Sharon continued to teach but also continued her education, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Organizational Learning and Information Technology from the University of New Mexico.

Sharon then took a position for a few years with the NM Public Education Department in Santa Fe where she helped public schools in NM with curriculum development and meeting the necessary requirements to obtain federal education funds. She found after that time that she missed actually teaching, so she got back into the game with what would prove to be her last teaching job at the Grants, NM extension of New Mexico State University. There she taught freshman and sophomore level biology, ecology, environmental science and chemistry. She officially retired as an assistant professor in 2015 from NMSU but as her husband often joked, promptly “flunked” retirement by teaching at least one online class each term up until the fall semester of 2025. By then the cancer made it too difficult to continue and she re-retired.

Sharon was a very active person who loved to stay busy. She was an avid gardener who entered the Sandoval County Master Gardeners program and became a certified master gardener in 2016. She remained an active member and instructor in the program up until a month prior to her death and had the pleasure of seeing many interns earn their master gardener certification in those 10 years. She also had her husband building and maintaining gardens and irrigation systems for 3 decades where she grew her own produce and vegetables.

Sharon’s other exploits included volunteering with the Albuquerque Assistance League–she particularly enjoyed working at The Blue Portal, their shop for local artisans in Old Town–and longtime involvement in the Beta Sigma Phi community service sorority, in which she remained active up until her death. She also served in several capacities as part of the Albuquerque Metro Alumni Panhellenic organization that provides scholarships to outstanding young sorority students at UNM.

Sharon worshipped at St. Francis Epispocal church in Rio Rancho, engaging in many roles there; she was pivotal in the inception and operation of St. Francis’s on-site charity shop, Clare’s Closet, but also served as a Sunday school teacher, member of the vestry, junior warden, senior warden, finance committee chair and, for the last few years of her life, as a member of the church’s wonderful altar guild, whom she adored.

Sharon shared her active life with her family, enjoying camping and travel. She enjoyed cooking, baking, canning, and caring for those she loved. She is survived by her husband Dave, her son Matthew, her daughters Megan and Caitlin, her son-in-law David, four cats and a dog.

A funeral mass in celebration of Sharon’s life will be held on Friday July 31st at 1:30 PM at St. Francis Epispocal Church, 2903 Cabezon Rd., RIo Rancho, NM with a reception to follow in the parish hall.