August 31, 1927 –  March 18, 2008  GORDONVILLE – Funeral services for Betty Ann (Moran) Ward, 80, will be at the Church of Christ, 17563 Hwy 901, Gordonville, TX 76245, officiated by Richard Jones and Gene Deckard on Saturday, March 22 at 2:00 p.m. with interment to follow in the Moran family plot at Mount Tabor Cemetery, Sandusky, TX. Visitation is scheduled for Friday, March 21 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Meador Funeral Home, 401 Hwy 377 N, Whitesboro, TX 76273.Betty Ann Moran, the daughter or William Lloyd Moran and Cleo Goldston Moran, was born August 31, 1927 on a farm near Gordonville, Texas originally settled by her grandfather Joseph Moran and her namesake grandmother, Bettie MacElroy Moran. She died at that same farm from complications of metastatic cancer on March 18, 2008. Her parents and three siblings preceded her in death. She is survived by her husband, Brad Hays Ward of Gordonville and son, Richard Brad Ward, of Sacramento, California.
Betty started school in Gordonville but, in second grade, began riding the school bus to nearby Whitesboro. She graduated from Whitesboro High in 1944 and entered Oklahoma Southeastern State College at Durant that fall. In 1946, Betty met Brad Ward, a returned WWII veteran who had just enrolled at Southeastern. Brad and Betty were married in the parlor of her rooming house in Durant on May 30, 1947.
Following sojourns in the various other Oklahoma towns (Bakersburg, Stillwater, McAlester), the Wards settled at Bartlesville in 1955 and lived there until 1978. Betty taught in the Bartlesville schools and worked for several years as a home economics instructor at Central Junior High. In 1964, the cityâ??s teachers elected her president of the Bartlesville Education Association.
For most of her life, Mrs. Ward was an active member of the Church of Christ. For over 20 summers, she acted as Head Girlsâ?? Counselor for the church-associated Sooner Youth Camp at Lake Murray, Oklahoma.
In 1971, Betty won a statewide teachersâ?? election to become president of the Oklahoma Education Association. Following that OEA presidential term, she lost the general election for a Washington County seat in the state legislature. She then served as Advisor for Educational Affairs on the staffs of Oklahoma Governors David Hall and George Nigh.
In 1981, Betty moved back to Gordonville to care for her parents. In Texas, she turned her expertise to the electoral politics of Grayson County, serving a stint as Democratic Party County Chairman and, in 1986, as delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In 1985-86, she was a member of the Texas Sesquicentennial Committee and commemorated 150 years of Texas statehood by helping organize various activities, including feeding the wagon train and laying a stone mosaic in the Highway 377 right-of-way at the south shore of Lake Texoma.
One of her last political acts was serving on the naming committee for the secondary roads of Grayson County. Primarily, Betty was responsible for names between Sandusky and Sherwood Shores.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested memorial donations to the Gordonville Community Center, P.O. Box 438, Gordonville, TX 76245. Mrs. Ward was instrumental in the conversion of a former school and church building to this community center and served for many years as its treasurer.