WASHINGTON: Deborah Harris Haskell, age 70, passed away peacefully on Sunday, February 7, 2021 in Ellensburg, WA. Her passing was as a result of complications from a prior heart attack. Deborah was born to Charles and Dorothy Harris in Westfield, MA on March 23, 1950. She was the eldest of three children. She spent her childhood in Westfield, MA and graduated from Westfield High School in 1968. Following graduation she attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1972.
She furthered her education in 1988 by earning a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Maine at Orono, following which she taught middle school science for the next seven years. After moving to South Carolina in 1995, she again pursued a higher level of learning and received her Doctorate Degree in Education from Clemson University in 2002. As a professor at the University of South Carolina at Aiken, she taught students to become middle school teachers. Her move to Ellensburg came in the summer of 2008 when she became a professor in the Education Department at Central Washington University. She happily retired in June of 2014 after a long and successful career.
In addition to the multiple moves within the United States, she also spent five years with her family living in an integrated city on the west coast of Saudi Arabia. She had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the world with her favorite place being the Scandinavian countries and spending some time above the Arctic Circle and seeing the midnight sun.
She was as active in retirement as she was during her professional career. She was an avid home gardener cultivating crops that provided fresh vegetables for most of the year. Going camping and hiking with the family puppies was another one of her favorite pastimes. Each year there were multiple family camping trips to various locations throughout the state of Washington. The travel bug stuck with her even in retirement as each year there was a trip with her sister to various national parks around the northwest and beyond. The penultimate trip was a cruise to Alaska and a stay in Denali National Park in 2018.
She is survived by Robert, her husband of 49 years, son Todd and his wife Sasha and two grandchildren Jordan and Rory of Bellingham, Washington, her sister Sharon Blanchard, her husband Robert, brother David and his wife Sheri of Westfield, Massachusetts, and her two dogs Scout and Willow.
