- Date Of Birth: June 12, 1942
- Date Of Death: October 30, 2021
- State: Idaho
Junella Sue (Finkbeiner) Hagood passed away on Saturday, October 30, 2021 in her Nampa, Idaho home. Thus ended an earthly life filled with love for Jesus and her fellow human beings and challenged by the onset of neurological diseases over the past two decades and, thus began an unending, eternal life in the presence of Jesus and her fellow saints.
Born on June 12, 1942 in Spokane, Washington, the sixth child of A.J. and Ella Finkbeiner, Junella moved with her family to Nampa, Idaho in 1942 when her father was commissioned to begin the art department at Northwest Nazarene University. She grew up next door to, and on, the campus of the college–joined there by other children who would become life-long friends. She attended College High School and when that transitioned to Nampa Christian High School, she was in the first graduating class (1960). Junella was a talented actress and participated in numerous high school and college productions. She graduated from Northwest Nazarene University in 1964 with a major in elementary education.
It was at NNU that she met and married a fellow student, Richard Hagood, who would be her life partner for 57 years. Junella was a gifted educator teaching in elementary schools in Boise, Eugene, and Urbana, Illinois. She was an innovative and creative teacher who thrived in the open classroom methodology. Even in these later years, many of her former students maintained contact with her. She retired from active teaching in 1972.
With her husband’s higher education career underway, she was active in children’s, youth and women’s ministries in Kent, Washington and Moscow, Idaho.
Junella returned to Nampa in 1985 to support her husband’s administrative assignments at Northwest Nazarene University and to rekindle her love for the community launched during her earlier days as a child and college student.
No doubt, Junella is best known for her commitment to prayer. Over the course of her life she was blessed with wonderful prayer partners, prayer retreats, prayer groups, and the faithful practice of prayer—including the devotion of one day per week praying for NNU.
Junella is survived by her husband, Richard Hagood; daughters, Heidi Sue (and George) Zickefoose and Holly Sue (and Daniel) Mack, and son Lincoln (and Debi Sue) Hagood; her grandchildren, Alexandra, Korte, Nate, Kendra, Jackson, Annabella, and Harrison; her brothers, Paul and David Finkbeiner; a brother-and sisters-in-law, and numerous nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her brothers, Arnie and Myron Finkbeiner, and sister, Sharon Larsen.
