Sandra Marie Dooper

Sandra Marie Dooper was born March 28, 1967 in Seattle Washington. She attended Southgate and Tukwila Elementary Schools, Showalter Middle School and graduated in the top ten from Foster High School in 1985. She started working in the Accounting Department of Stearns and Foster while still in high school. She attended Highline Community College to start earning her Accounting degree. Stearns and Foster promoted Sandy and moved her to their Phoenix Arizona plant and she lived in Ahwatukee, just outside of Phoenix. Mark helped move her down in a U-haul truck, towing her 1969 Mustang along. That car sure ended up not liking the heat in Arizona, causing her many trips to the repair shop.

She continued working on her education attending Arizona State University. Mom and Diana made several trips down to visit. Sandy and Diana attended concerts, went to the Grand Canyon, took a ride in a hot air balloon and flew to California to go to Disney Land and Knott's Berry Farm. She was in Phoenix for about a year and the company moved her to their California plant where she lived in Rancho Cucamonga, outside of Los Angeles. Again, Diana flew down to attend concerts and explore the area. Sandy lived there for another year and then decided to head back home to Washington. She got a job with the Shakey's Pizza company doing their accounting. Diana finished her AA degree and they both headed up to Western Washington University to complete their Accounting degrees. Here Sand ended up getting an amazing part time job for an artist/gardener doing his accounting. A job she dearly loved. She earned her BA in Accounting and moved back to Seattle.

Sandy was hired at East Point Seafood first, then her next job was for the Victoria Clipper doing their Accounting. The free trips to Victoria were quite fun. She started studying for and eventually passing the CPA exam. She was very proud of this accomplishment and quite relieved once it was completed. She continued her professional career with many other companies and eventually became Controller for several different manufacturing companies. She was very successful and had a lot to be proud of in her career. Based on the recommendation of one of her former bosses she had just recently started a new job with a company on the rise. She was hoping to help them take their business to the next level. Unfortunately for them and her that plan wasn't in the cards.

Sandra was a wonderful daughter to her parents, taking them on several road trips in their later years. She drove Dad back to Amery, Wisconsin for his 50th reunion, as well as, Las Vegas for a reunion with his old Air Force buddies. She took Mom to Temecula, California to visit with her sister Kay. There were also many family road trips throughout the years. What memories we have of that old truck and camper and the many miles covered in them.

She was an amazing sister. She was very generous and helpful and always there for us. She spent many hours doing Mark's books for his business. And, she was always willing to listen and lend a hand with our problems. She provided lots of fun times and many memories with the purchase of her house in Ocean Shores in 2006. She was always trying to come up with wonderful ideas for Christmas and Birthday gifts for us, wanting to find that something special.

She was a wonderful friend to those that understood her. This is because she didn't take crap from anybody and wasn't afraid to say what was on her mind. Often times this offended people BUT, this was just her. She expected a lot from people and was a true friend to those she chose to be a friend to.

She liked to give, often supplying Christmas meals, Christmas gifts to children and people in nursing homes. She also liked to donate to St. Scholastica in memory of loved ones.

Traveling was one of Sand's favorite things to do. She had been to all fifty states, many times over. She traveled to Europe three times. First on a five week graduation trip after high school on her own. Sandy and Diana made the other two trips together. They were both Rick Steve's tours. The first to Eastern Europe covering the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. The second was the Scandinavia tour covering Sweden, Denmark and Norway. They made friends on these trips and enjoyed the small group, off the beaten path, intimacy of them. She tried to make it to Asia twice, but she never made either of those two trips. First due to an earthquake hitting Japan and then SARS breaking out in China.

Sand's favorite thing in the past few years were the walks on the beach in Ocean Shores collecting shells, rocks and looking for the "Baltic Sea Amber", known to everyone else as AGATES. She spent many hours beach combing and always wanted to be the one to find the most and the biggest pieces. The Memorial Day Weekends were one of her favorites, because we started traveling up the coast to attend the big sale held that weekend every year to raise money for the North Beach Museum. The hunt was on to find treasures to display all the findings from the beach. The Fourth of July was also another fun holiday there, watching all the fireworks going off up and down the beach was amazing. She sure could take awesome fireworks pictures. We luckily got to spend several Thanksgivings, Christmases and New Year's Eve's down there too.

Sandra was a wonderful person with a great heart and her life ended way too soon. She is and will always be missed and truly loved!