Ann Scott Winters

Ann Scott Gray Winters left us on Tuesday, February 28, 2023. Ann Scott was born on October 20, 1947 in Fayetteville, Arkansas to her loving parents, Helen Lucile Moore Gray and Layton Norma Gray. She is survived by step son Matthew Winters and step grandson Joseph Winters, nieces Robin Major, Paula Lewis, and Patty Milam, nephews Barton Winters and Marvin Denton West, and cousins John Fleming, David Fleming, Carolyn Tiebel, and Peggy Garcia.

Ann Scott spent most of her life in Ft Smith where she went to Ballman Elementary School, Ramsey Junior High and graduated with the Greatest Class Alive, the class of 1965 from Northside High School. She continued her education at Queens College where she graduated with a BA in English Literature. From there, she went to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville for her MA, and later did post grad work at McNeese State University, the U of A, and the Bread Loaf School of English in Vermont.

Ann Scott’s first teaching job was in Lake Charles, LA, where she taught high school English. Returning to Ft Smith, she continued her teaching career at Southside High school where she taught English for 11 years and then went on to Westark Junior College, now University of Arkansas Ft Smith, where she was an Associate Professor in the English Department, retiring after 19 years. While teaching at UAFS she won the Whirlpool Master Teacher Award in 2002.

Ann Scott met the love of her life, Robert Winters, while helping a friend with a tag sale. The friend said that there must have been something between them immediately, as she sold him a non-working vacuum cleaner! Married on August 14, 1986, they lived and loved together for 30 years, until Robert’s death in June, 2016.

Her Methodist Faith was very important to Ann Scott. She grew up in the First Methodist Church, and continued to worship there until her death. Her faith helped to inform her character. One of her long- time colleagues said of her that she was one of the few “purely good people” she had ever known. Another friend said of her that she lived her Methodist faith in ways that sought to make the world a gentler, kinder place.

She was a woman of intelligence and wit, who found as much joy in teasing out the meaning of a poem as in sharing a hilariously funny – and sometimes raunchy – story. She was a consummate teacher. She was the instructor who “spent time sitting beside me talking through each item to ensure my understanding.”

When you were with her, you would always learn things. Sometimes they would be the small academic, but important things. But often you would learn something about the big mysteries of life, if you paid attention.

She was a generous and fiercely loyal friend, and when you were her friend, you were her friend for life. She brought sunshine into every room she entered and could always be counted on for a ready smile, a quick laugh, and the ability to find the fun in even life’s smallest moments. Her friends never doubted their value in her eyes, and she loved the Yeats expression, “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.”

And all of these friends will miss her terribly.

Memorial Services will be 10:00 AM Saturday, March 11, 2023 at Roebuck Chapel of the First United Methodist Church of Fort Smith, with interment of ashes in the church columbarium.