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Submitted: 9/24/16 • Approved: 9/24/16 • Last Updated: 9/27/16 • R232379-G232379-S3
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Susan Kay Vlahas Ponchillia of Three Rivers, Mich., passed away Monday, Oct. 12, 2009, at Bronson Methodist Hospital, Kalamazoo, Mich.
She was born Oct. 4, 1954, in Greenville Mich., the second daughter of Julia and Theodore Vlahas, who preceded her in death. Her siblings are sister, Gail (Rick) Davis and brothers, Jay (Denise) and Todd (Tracy) Vlahas.
Susan met her best friend, Paul Ponchillia, at Western Michigan University when they were students. After several years of friendship, they married outdoors under a Burr Oak tree at her family home in Belding, Mich., in 1981. Paul survives her and she also is survived by stepchildren, Tina (Durand) McIntosh and Jeff Ponchillia, and their children, Taylor, Savana, Jack, Elizabeth, Ashlee, Dalton, and Aaron.
Susan was a professor in the Western Michigan University Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies for 25 Years. She dedicated a lifetime of 60-hour weeks supporting and nurturing the several hundred graduate students she advised. That dedication has resulted in a national and international network of friends and admirers that is unparalleled among her university colleagues. Susan also was a scholar, conducting a wide range of research and authoring or coauthoring numerous professional articles and books. Her most notable writing was coauthoring with her husband Paul the first comprehensive textbook in her professional field, Vision Rehabilitation Therapy.
She was a member of the Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired, Kalamazoo Council of the Blind, St. Joseph County Habitat for Humanity, and she served as officer or board member for numerous other professional organizations nationally and internationally. Together, she and Paul combined their love of the outdoors, sports, and recreation to develop and direct two notable WMU programs: The sports education camps for Michigan's children with visual impairments and the Bakos Memorial International Goalball tournaments. Sue gave nearly a quarter of a century of public service to each of these programs.
Through their northern travels, Susan became interested in research about native Canadian people with blindness. She spent many hours teaching T'licho people and studying their genetic blindness in the Canadian Northwest Territories. As in all things Susan, those she taught became lifelong friends. She and WMU colleague Frank Jamison recently produced a documentary video entitled, Sing Me A Fish: Tlichoe People Living with Vision Loss, which was the capstone of her work in the NWT.
Susan loved nature, reading, writing, photography, kayaking, walks in the woods, racquetball, and cooking for friends. She played racquetball 4-5 days a week for more than 18 years with her friend, Karen Cornell. Another of Sue's passions was reading about and traveling to the arctic to hike and kayak, where she paddled, trekked, and developed a relationship with God through the glorious environs of Greenland, Alaska, and the High Canadian Arctic. She was a true Arctic adventurer and will be remembered for that passion. Mostly, Susan's friends will remember her as a giver. Her husband Paul said, "Sue's default mode was to give of her time, her things, and mostly her love. While the others of us were considering whether to give at all and how much to contribute if we did, Sue had paid the check, told the waitress how nice her hair looked, hugged everyone at the table, and was thinking of something nice to say to someone else she spotted on the way to the exit
Sue was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Three Rivers/Centerville, where her memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Donations may be made to Paul and Susan Ponchillia Vision Rehabilitation Therapy Student Scholarship Fund Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies Western Michigan University 1903 West Michigan Ave Mail Stop 5218 Kalamazoo, MI 49008, to the Kalamazoo Council of the Blind and Visually Impaired, P.O. Box 50603, Kalamazoo, MI 49005 or to Habitat for Humanity of St. Joseph County, P.O. Box 96, Three Rivers, MI 49093.
Contributed on 9/24/16 by cemeterysaver
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Record #: 232379