- Date Of Birth: July 16, 1939
- Date Of Death: February 26, 2021
- State: Arizona
Gelene Hunter Barnett, aged 81, passed away on 2/26/2021. She was born in Alma, Arkansas on July 16, 1939, the oldest child of parents Theodore William Hunter and Gladys Faye Wilcox Hunter. Her younger brothers Robert Charles and William Raymond died before her, while her brother Thomas Wayne Hunter resides in Farmington, New Mexico.
Gelene graduated from Van Buren High School, Van Buren, Arkansas in 1957. She then attended Ouachita Baptist College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas for a year before moving to Phoenix, and enrolling in Arizona State University and taking classes each summer at Phoenix College. She graduated ASU in 1962 with a B.S. in Medical Technology. She married Paul Richard Barnett (d. 2015) on January 27, 1964, and they had two children, Mark Hunter and Julia Ann. After her divorce in 1987, she found lasting companionship in Phoenix, AZ with Philip Fredrick Rust who pre-deceased her in 2012 and with whom she had loving relationship.
In 1980, Gelene obtained her MS in Health Care Administration from Texas Women’s University, having written her thesis on the costs and benefits of consolidating hospital laundry services, which was implemented at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. She reached the pinnacle of her professional career as Assistant Hospital Administrator at Woman’s Hospital of Texas, in Houston and as Laboratory Director at St. Joseph’s Hospital / Barrow Neurological Institute, in Phoenix. She often expressed the great satisfaction she found in her leadership and work in these two roles.
Throughout her life, she found joy in the opportunities to travel to many interesting and unusual places around the world. Her favorite trip was to Moscow during the Soviet era (circa 1982). And she also enjoyed a trip through Europe that included several days in Paris where she particularly enjoyed seeing the Moulin Rouge.
Wonder Woman was her childhood role model; and in the view of her children she lived up to that standard: she succeeded professionally beyond anyone’s expectation but her own. She did so while balancing all the myriad demands that society placed upon working women with young children. Wherever she went, her influence left order in her wake. Her ability to solve problems in the work place and lead her staffs, was equaled by her ability to create order and beauty at home.
Gelene was an enduring source of emotional support and advice for her two children in difficult times. She is survived by her two children, Mark Barnett in Stafford, TX and Julia Barnett in Lake Stevens, WA, and by her brother, Wayne Hunter in Farmington, NM.
