Sharon Hesketh Lyons
My mother Marguerite Hesketh and I together honored all the women of our family in the Women's Plaza of honor to recognize their individual lives and chosen life journeys. My sister Sharon Hesketh Lyons was born in New Jersey and headed off in diapers by ship with our family to an oil refinery in the middle of the jungle in Colombia South America. While there she learned and spoke Spanish before she spoke English. Her life so far has included travels around the world living and later attending school in Colombia India the Philippines Australia Japan and France. While in Paris she attended and was graduated from the American School of Paris and celebrated her senior prom in the Eiffel Tower restaurant. Returning to the States for college she elected after two years of classes to marry and soon had a son Donny moving after two years back to Tucson Arizona to rejoin our family. She took a position at Leo's Auto Supply and then enrolled in secretarial school at Durham Business College after which she obtained a position at the University of Arizona. She remarried moved with her husband to Prescott Arizona and later welcomed her daughter Kimberly into the world. Over the following years her husband's career took her to Stillwater and Broken Arrow Oklahoma. She obtained a clerical position with the Pharmacy Department at Stillwater Municipal Hospital. During this time she also returned to college and completed an accounting course. While living in Broken Arrow she worked at St. Johns Medical Center and completed courses to be credentialed as a pharmacy technician a field she remained in for seven years. After five years her family moved to Phoenix where she worked in area hospitals. A few years later she divorced and found administrative assistant positions in the trucking industry. For a brief period of two years she joined a partner and hauled freight back and forth across the country taking turns driving an 18-wheeler. As well Sharon investigated a career change and worked for accounting firms for two years but returned to the trucking industry from which she retired completing her 24-year career at FEDEX Freight. Semi-retired she is a doting grandmother to five grandchildren and maintains her home in the Phoenix area where she enjoys needlepoint reading good times with friends and family and gardening. She hopes to resume taking some courses and is exploring volunteer opportunities.