Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Science Educator Succumbs To Cancer

Prescott and Nevada County lost a valuable resident Monday morning when cancer claimed Joyce Westmoreland.

Westmoreland, 56, was a popular teacher at Prescott Middle School, where she instructed sixth grade students in science.

According to Jim Gober, PMS principal, Westmoreland did an excellent job with the students, going above and beyond the call of her duties.

He said she went out of her way to make her class interesting for the students, thereby keeping them interested in science. Westmoreland's students built a killer whale and replica of the space shuttle out of garbage bags, which were inflated with air to fill out their shape.

Along with teaching science, Westmoreland was a sponsor of the PMS student council, involved with the community theater and taught hunter's education courses to the sixth grade students.

"She did a good job," Gober said. "She was well organized. The students really responded to her."

He said Westmoreland wasn't the type of person to give up without a fight, though the cancer finally won. "She will be sorely missed," Gober said.

Don Mitchell, former PMS principal, was the one who hired Westmoreland.

He said she will be missed in the field of education because she was an excellent teacher who was able to relate to her students.

"The children will miss her," he said. "People in the community will also miss her. I'm sorry this happened."

Her nephew, Jim Westmoreland, criminal investigator with the Prescott Police Department and Nevada County Sheriff's Office, called his aunt a "fine person, teacher and mother.

"She loved everyone," he said. "She was one of the nicest people you'd ever want to know."

Westmoreland shared Teacher of the Year honors with Pearl Bailey at the 1997 Prescott-Nevada County Chamber of Commerce Banquet.

She was born Sept. 24, 1940, in Gurdon, was a member of Central Baptist Church, Delta Kappa Gamma, Gamma Beta Phi and Alpha Chi.

Services were held Tuesday, July 8, at Central Baptist Church. She was buried in Westmoreland Cemetery, Caney.