Charlene Beth Lopez

On the evening of April 2, 2021, Charlene Beth (Priebe) López, age 80, passed away peacefully at Bryant Woods Manor assisted-living facility in Columbia, MD. She is survived by her beloved husband of 58 years, Rodolfo (Rudy) J. López and her loving son Michael R. López and his wife, Jacquie. She was preceded in death by her parents, Charles and Alida (Fuchs) Priebe. Charlene was an intelligent, creative, and simply amazing person with a long list of wonderful accomplishments during her precious time on this plane. She was born on September 27, 1940 in the small, German-influenced town of La Grange, TX where she spent her childhood until she graduated cum laude (with honors) from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor’s degree in History. She fell in love with her future husband, Rudy, while on campus there as they had uniquely similar interests in history, art, music, and literature. They eventually eloped after graduation and then travelled to Germany where he was stationed with the U.S. Army. She began her teaching career there on the Army base and in the process gave birth to their son, Michael. After she settled here in Maryland, where she would spend the rest of her life, she worked diligently to continue her education and ultimately received her Master’s degree in Education from the University of Maryland. Charlene was an artist at heart, enjoying still life and landscape oil painting in her early years and then sharing the photography bug with her husband, Rudy, later on. She had a unique eye for capturing distinctive images and telling remarkable visual stories through her black and white pictures. It was a wonderful gift that she had and one that she was able to generously share with her son, Michael, who is also an avid photographer. Charlene along with her husband, Rudy, were a true Renaissance couple and they dearly enjoyed the finer things in life - going to opening night at the theater and the symphony, visiting local art museums, listening to classical music, dining out and preparing their own gourmet dishes, entertaining fantastic dinner parties, raising their affectionate rag doll cats, and, most of all, travelling the world. They had many wonderful adventures in Europe, throughout the United States, as well as Central America and the Caribbean islands. Charlene had incredible style and she radiated elegance and charm. She would have been successful as a fashion designer, an interior decorator, a jewelry designer, an antique dealer, or a travel guide. However, she selflessly chose to be an educator for 34 years! Arlene Mindus, Charlene’s best friend and colleague for 46 years writes: “Anyone who knew Charlene, knew that she was an extraordinary teacher! Whether performing her role as team leader, master teacher, or supervising teacher, Charlene had always conveyed an in-depth understanding of learning theory into practical application, especially when teaching reading and writing. She was unusually attuned to what a child needed to feel accomplished and motivated. Her skill and perseverance transformed students into enthusiastic learners who would otherwise falter, become frustrated, and emotionally “drop out” from school. Charlene had the ability to break down what might otherwise seem like a complex problem into separate steps, with each step building on the last, thinking in a very logical way”. In the area of visual organization, Charlene was perhaps the most accomplished teacher in the country. Charlene, one of the first three teachers to make comprehensive use of Dr. Frank Lyman’s ThinkLinks and a co-inventor of ThinkTrix, was quite arguably the most revolutionary teacher of cognitive mapping in the United States from 1973 on to the 1990s. Students were taught to visualize and organize their thinking on maps called ThinkLinks while at the same time metacognitively recognizing the types of thinking they were doing. Using this approach, second through fourth grade students penetrated literature and made connections to other literature and their lives. In 2010, Roman & Littlefield published, The Shaping of Thought, collaboration among Frank Lyman, Charlene, and myself that was written at my kitchen table, usually in the summer months, over a period of 20+ years! For the past 6 years, Charlene and I wrote, The Magic of Children's Poetry, again at my kitchen table. Hopefully, it will be published soon in honor of Charlene. Charlene’s inspired teaching and caring for children was recognized formally in 1987 when she was Howard County Public School System’s first teacher to be awarded the Washington Post Agnes Meyer Teacher of the Year Award. Along with her inventiveness and high standards, she was recognized for her absolute dedication to children and their education. This recognition proved well deserved, as she chose to work with all academic levels and diverse demographic circumstances at the elementary school level. The honors and respect that Charlene accrued were hard earned. The Running Brook Community in Columbia where she taught for three decades benefited from a great American schoolteacher, an inspiration and model to numerous teachers and administrators. Her success was emblematic of the best the profession had to offer in intellect, compassion, vision, and skill. Those contributions that Charlene made to the community could easily have been underestimated, because it was in many ways invisible. But awards like the Washington Post Agnes Meyer Award and other teacher celebrations, highlight and make us remember how extraordinarily important teachers like Charlene are. She fostered children’s sense of themselves as worthy, as successful, as capable of continued success, essential to each child’s development as an educated and engaged citizen. Coupled with an energetic and creative teaching style, Charlene’s dedicated engagement yielded powerful results. Charlene derived tremendous joy from teaching. Her students, colleagues, and ultimately all of the residents of Howard County were the beneficiaries of her dedication and enthusiastic approach to teaching. We are all deeply indebted to her for that. Someone once wrote: “A teacher takes everyday things of life, the things a child knows, and fashions them into stepping stones of knowledge and growth. Charlene was that kind of teacher.” Her family, her friends, and her colleagues will sorely miss her. May she rest in peace. A celebration of Charlene’s life will be held on Wednesday, April 7th from 6-8 pm at the Slack Funeral Home, 3871 Old Columbia Pike, Ellicott City, MD 21043. All are welcome. Graveside services and interment will be held on Thursday, April 8th at 11 am in the Columbia Memorial Park, 12005 Clarksville Pike, Clarksville, MD 21029. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation in honor of Charlene López to the Children’s Literacy Initiative (CLI). CLI is a non-profit organization working with pre-k through 5th grade teachers to improve early literacy instruction so that children become powerful readers, writers, and thinkers. Charlene devoted much of her life to teaching kids language arts and we believe that she would have approved of this gesture. Children’s Literacy Initiative can be found online at https://cli.org/donate/