Betty Marie Dixon Vinyard Hilt

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Funeral services for Betty Marie Dixon Vinyard Hilt, 81, Lawrence, Kan., will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008, at Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home. Private burial will be at a later date in Oak Hill Cemetery.

Mrs. Hilt died Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008, at The Windsor of Lawrence.

She was born Jan. 17, 1927, in Harrisburg, the daughter of LeRoy and Edith Ellen Wilkins Dixon. She attended schools in Harrisburg and graduated from Harrisburg High School. She later graduated from Blackburn University in Illinois. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kansas.

Mrs. Hilt taught physical education in Harrisburg from 1947 to 1949. She began teaching the developmentally disabled in the Lawrence school district in 1952, and later began teaching the mentally handicapped at Cordley School, until she retired in 1993. She was a lifetime member of the Lawrence Education Association, the Kansas State Teacher's Association, Delta Kappa Gamma sorority, Douglas County Retired Citizens, the Commission on Exceptional Children, the Douglas County Association of Retarded Citizens and the First Presbyterian Church. She enjoyed bridge, square dancing, traveling to Europe, Mexico and across the United States and panning for gold in Alaska.

She married Kenneth Vinyard on June 27, 1948, in Harrisburg. They later divorced in 1967. She married Alfred Hilt in 1977. He died in 1989. She was also preceded in death by her parents; a son, Gary Vinyard; a sister, Doris DeNeal; and a nephew, Ronald DeNeal.

Survivors include a daughter, Sara Vinyard Kyriakos and husband Michael, Lawrence, Kan.; two sisters, Dorothy Jack, Yuma, Ariz., and Wilma Gibbons, Washington State; and four grandchildren, Zach and Morgan Vinyard, Massachusetts, and Paula and Ellen Kyriakos, Lawrence, Kan.; three nieces, Dixie Jack, Renea Patterson, and Dana Gibbons; and two nephews, Rick and Scott Gibbons.

Friends may call from noon to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21, 2008, and from 9 a.m. until service time Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008, at the funeral home. The family will receive friends following the service Saturday.

The family suggests memorial contributions to the Lawrence Education Association Scholarship Fund, in care of the funeral home.

On-line condolences may be sent at the Internet www.rumsey-yost.com.