Kathryn Burrell Kelehear

KATHRYN BURRELL KELEHEAR

November 24, 1932—June 13, 2024

Long-time Dalton Public Schools Teacher and Administrator Kathryn Burrell Kelehear died Thursday, June 13, 2024, following an extended illness.

Survivors include her sons and their wives, Sparky and Pat Kelehear and Zach Kelehear and Karen Heid; grandchildren, Katie and Chris Guy, Sarah and Chris Murphy, Zackary, Veronica, Hannah and Ben Kelehear; Chris and Brenna Minor, John Minor and Charlsey Etheridge; and brother and sister-in-law, Col. Steve Burrell, Ph.D. and Diane Burrell. Great grandchildren, nieces and nephews as well as many close friends also survive.

Kathryn was preceded in death by her husband, O. L. (Kal) Kelehear; her parents, Zeb and Anice Burrell; and her brother and sister-in-law, Drs. Zeb and Lanette Burrell.

Born and educated in the mountains of Northeast Georgia, Kathryn grew up in Tallulah Falls and graduated from Tallulah Falls High School. She met her future husband, Kal, at Piedmont College where both were very active in campus life.

Kathryn, like many girls who become teachers, created her first classroom at an early age “teaching her dolls and stuffed animals.”  Her ambitions to be a teacher never wavered. Neither did her commitment to students, whom she always placed at the top of her career priorities.

An accomplished student herself, she was a life-long learner.  She added both a master’s degree and an educational specialist degree from the University of Georgia enhancing her own knowledge and skills while rearing a family and teaching school.  Once the degrees were conferred, she continued to read and study a wide variety of topics with most ultimately related to teaching and learning.

Husband Kal began his career as a teacher and a coach, but realized that a business focus would help support a family financially and switched careers to human resources.  The couple’s early years together took them to various counties in Georgia and South Carolina as job opportunities in both education and business beckoned them.

Kelehear sons Sparky and Zach grew up knowing that they were their parents’ top focus. Indeed, for Kathryn the commitment to the family was central to all her choices, to all commitments, to her life.

In 1967, the same year that Kathryn completed her master’s studies, the family moved to Dalton.  Kal began work with WestPoint Pepperell while Kathryn joined the Dalton High School faculty as an English teacher.

Within months, both were embedded into their new hometown through volunteerism and leadership roles as well as through their day jobs.  The whole community benefitted from their teamwork and their individual efforts, especially Dalton’s First United Methodist Church and, in Kathryn’s case, the Dalton Public Schools.

Kathryn’s classroom years were cut short when she found herself unable to move in a school stairwell, the result of major back problems.  Multiple back surgeries later, encompassing many years, she was still involved in Dalton’s schools.  She took on a variety of jobs that were more suitable for an educator with mobility challenges, or at least, she convinced superintendents that she could do them so that she could stay involved in teaching children and youth when the daily classroom routine became too trying.

Mixed in with those titles was a wide assortment of assignments ranging from system- wide accreditation coordination to Educational Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (E-SPLOST) designs.  She was also drafted to mentor good teachers who could be even better with her leadership.

Even with a full load of work, she found ways to continue to relate to students, and frequently inspired colleagues with her timely reminders when things were complicated that “Nothing matters but the children” and “Make connections to kids!”

When technology swallowed up many of the “old ways” of doing things, Kathryn never unfurled the cord on her Dalton Public Schools-issued computer.  When challenged about this refusal to convert to computers, she held up her Number 2 pencil and yellow legal pad and affirmed that she would not change ever and that she “would die and go to Glory on a yellow school bus” before she would need a computer to teach children.  She boarded that bus this week, still clutching her Number 2 pencil and yellow legal pad.

Funeral services for Kathryn Kelehear are scheduled for Wednesday, June 19, at 2 p.m. in the First United Methodist Church of Dalton sanctuary.  The Rev. Dr. Robin Lindsey and the Rev. Mac Enfinger will officiate.

Visitation will precede the service in church atrium between noon and 1:45 p.m.

Memorial gifts may be given to The Dalton Education Foundation, P.O. Box 1408, Dalton, GA 30722, The First United Methodist Church of Dalton, 500 S. Thornton Ave., Dalton, GA 30720, or one’s favorite charity.