Memorial graveside services for Sandra Sue Wise Knighten will be held at 10:00 a.m. Saturday, September 14, 2024, at Colquitt Cemetery under the direction of Bailey Funeral Home of Haynesville, LA

Sandra Sue Wise Knighten went to be with the Lord on Thursday, May 9, 2024, after a brief illness that ended a courageous, long-term battle against Parkinson’s disease. She was a beloved daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend.

Born in Thomasville, Georgia to James Cortez Wise, Jr. and Laura Bernice Andrews Wise on August 8, 1947, Sue grew up in rural north Louisiana, meeting the love of her life, Merrell Knighten, her freshman year of high school at a county fair. Sue was told in school by a guidance counselor that she could do anything she wanted after she graduated. In so many ways, she lived that idea. She went to college, married, and finished school even after having her first child. She worked full-time while raising four boys and earning her Master’s degree. She learned to program computers at a time when a single processor would fill a room and kept up with them as they shrank to a desktop. She took up square dancing, stained glass, bowling, golf, pickleball, ballroom dance, and so many other activities, all in an effort to both connect with others and to prove that she could. She was an attentive and involved mother, attending her son’s sports in the heat of summer and cold of winter and continuously supporting all their endeavors, from football to judo to soccer to music and everything in between, even into adulthood. She remained involved in church, at “home” in north Louisiana and wherever else she resided along the way. Her love for the Lord and her family underscored her every endeavor.

Sue faced her diagnosis with Parkinson’s head-on and refused to allow it to dictate her limits or her lifestyle. Fiercely independent to the end, she lived that counselor’s advice and really did do just about anything she decided to do. Those who knew her will always remember her spirit and kindness in including others in her goals and walking alongside them in their trials.

Sue is preceded in death by her parents; brothers Jim and Corky; husband Merrell Knighten; and survived by her siblings Dot, Marie, and Bobby; sons David, Michael, Tommy, and Patrick; daughters-in-law Tressa, Nicole, Stephanie, and Joanna; and grandchildren Mason, Madelyn, Claire, James, Luke, Mark, Jacob, and Bronte.