Anna Elizabeth May Stark, 1910-2011.

After one hundred vigorous years, Anna Elizabeth May Stark, resident of Lexington and later Gainesville, FL, passed away at her son's home in Tampa on Sunday 30 January 2011.

Anna was born on 24 April 1910 in Berea KY, to Professor Noah May and Sarah Elizabeth Cornett May. Noah was a professor at Berea College and later the University of Kentucky. Preceding her in death were her younger sister Edith May Carroll and her older brother Earl Campbell May.

At age 16, Anna entered the University of Kentucky where she received her BA. After teaching in a private school in Cincinnati, she earned an MA in "Education of the Exceptional Child" from Columbia University in 1942. That same year she married William (Bill) John Stark. Their son William Richard was born in 1945, nine months after Bill's R&R leave in San Francisco from Navy service on the Pacific front. In addition to Richard, she has a grandson Christopher and a great grandson Cameron.

After the war, Bill was a professional civil engineer and Anna taught fifth grade at Kenwick Elementary School in Lexington. She was honored as Outstanding Teacher by the State of Kentucky. From 1963 to 1972, she had a second career as Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education at Eastern Kentucky State University.

In retirement, Anna traveled extensively, visiting England, Scotland, Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Albania, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. She traveled like a vagabond, riding any train that would take her in the right direction, accepting help from strangers, and staying with locals or in small hotels when not sleeping in train stations.

Even more than travel, Anna loved surfing the Web and was one of the Internet's oldest enthusiasts. A competition she enjoyed was to think of a subject that would return the smallest number of valid hits on Google. "The Baffin Island Board of Education controversy" once won with only two hits.

By name, location, and interests, she searched to find her students or, because she outlived so many, then their children. Memories and tales of life's trials were exchanged between a child's teacher and the adult the child had become. Finally, dearest to her heart were the many friends with whom she e-traded photos and stories on a daily basis. Internet search was her favorite amusement.

Anna lived independently until breaking a leg last summer, well past her 100th birthday. Her son is Professor of Mathematics at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

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