Wendy Marie Sharpless passed away on February 5, 2022 after a hard-fought battle with soft tissue sarcoma. Born on February 24, 1971, in Baytown, Texas, she was the second of 5 children born to Jim and Frances Sharpless. A long-time choir teacher with Pasadena ISD, her love of music began at Frazier Elementary, where she participated in the district Olympiad and began piano lessons from the school music teacher Pat McNamara. Moving to Thompson Intermediate, she joined choir and was selected to region choir. Going on to Dobie HS, she was selected for region choir each year and in 1988 she made the Texas All-state Choir under the tutelage of Janwin Goode, Debbie Tidwell, and Linda Fletcher. Wendy participated in several school musicals, starring as Eliza Doolittle in "My Fair Lady". After completing her Bachelor of Music degree in Music Therapy in 1994 at Sam Houston State University, she worked for Richmond State School and began substitute teaching at several PISD schools. While working toward her Alternative Teaching Certificate she was a substitute for Special Ed classes at Stuchbery, and used her knowledge of American Sign Language to work with deaf education students. She became the choral teacher at Thompson and finally the Head Choral Director at Dobie where she taught until her medical retirement in 2021. Her choirs won numerous awards and saw many of her students rise to the All-state choir level. She served the students of PISD for 26 years.

In addition to her teaching career, she participated in "People to People" several years, going to Australia and Europe as a teacher/mentor, and she was a die-hard Astros fan. Her best accomplishments were her two children Samantha and Jacob Gilbreath, both of whom graduated from Dobie. She was also very proud of being able to assist Dobie science classes with establishing and maintaining the Butterfly Garden on the trail close to Dobie, where she spent many hours in reflection admiring the butterflies. She became very knowledgeable concerning the butterfly life cycle and appropriate plants for their survival.

Besides the thousands of students who affectionately called her "mama" or "Ms. S", she is survived by her parents, siblings Brian Sharpless with wife Sarah, Laura with husband Justin Gissendanner and Christopher Sharpless, as well as nieces and nephews Elliott and Noah Sharpless, Ashlyn and Logan Gissendanner and Kyla, Haylee, and Avery Sharpless. She was predeceased by her brother Paul as well as both set of grandparents.

Our prayers of thanksgiving go out to all of her "Wendy's Warriors" supporters, her many students and teachers who came to her side during this time, and our neighbors and friends who provided much physical and emotional support for Wendy, her parents and siblings.

A Mass of Remembrance will be celebrated at 11:00am Saturday, March 5, 2022, at St. Luke the Evangelist Catholic Church on Hall Road. A reception for everyone will immediately follow at the Dobie HS Cafeteria.