Joan Ethel Reynolds

Joan Kirkland Reynolds, 82, of Owensboro died Friday, September 25, 2015 at Hillcrest Healthcare Center. She was born in Minneapolis, MN, on August 21, 1933, to the late Kenneth and Margaret Kirkland. Her family lived in Texas and Southern Illinois before settling in Owensboro in 1947. She graduated from Owensboro High School in 1951 and attended Murray State University. She graduated from UK with a teaching degree in 1955 and earned her MA and Rank I from WKU in 1975.
Joan specialized in gifted education. She taught at Masonville Elementary School and Burns Middle School. She also taught education courses at Kentucky Wesleyan and created an extracurricular program for gifted students called Above and Beyond.
Joan was a dedicated mother as well as a talented cook, seamstress, hostess and gardener. She volunteered as a Girl Scout leader for many years and was a member of Buena Vista Baptist Church where she sang in the choir and conducted Sunday School Classes for residents of Fern Terrace.
After retiring in 1987, Joan traveled around the world on her own for six months, visiting Europe, India, Nepal, China and Egypt. She earned a second masters degree from The School for International Training in Brattleboro VT in 1990. She lived in Prague and taught English for two years right after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. In 1995 she traveled with a select group on the Women's Peace Train from Helsinki to Beijing and attended the 4th UN Conference for Women. She went to Uganda in 1998 as a member of a group dedicated to empowering women in rural villages. Joan spent most summers between 1995 and 2006 working at World Fellowship Center, a summer camp focused on peace and justice issues. Her grandson, Jonah, has carried on her legacy, working there for the past two summers.
Joan loved being outdoors in nature. She moved back to Kentucky in 2000 and built a cabin in the mountains near Berea. She did a lot of the construction work herself and she enjoyed living a simple lifestyle there in the woods until moving back to Owensboro in 2008.
Survivors include a sister, Kathryn (Nick)Handley; a brother, Kenneth (Gaye) Kirkland; a sister, Marjorie Nave; a son Brad (Susan) Reynolds, a daughter, Lisa Borja of Las Vegas; and grandchildren, Noah Reynolds, Jonah Reynolds, Daniel Reynolds, Rhett Knott, and Will Greer.
Services will be at 4:00 p.m. Saturday at Glenn Funeral Home and Crematory, Owensboro. Visitation will begin at 2:00 p.m. at the funeral home.
Expressions of sympathy may take the form of donations to World Fellowship Center, PO Box 2280 Conway, NH 03818. Condolences may be offered to the family at www.glennfuneralhome.com.