01/11/1934 – 08/18/2022
Lawrence
Raymond Harvey Wilbur, 88, of Lawrence, Kansas, passed away on Thursday, August 18, 2022.
Ray was born in Salina, Kansas, on January 11, 1934, to Teresa and Oscar Wilbur. He was the third of their five sons, which also included Robert, Roy, Richard, and Roger.
He attended Salina High School where he was president of the senior class as well as representative boy. He then earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Kansas Wesleyan University and played varsity football and basketball. His 1954 basketball team was inducted into the Kansas Wesleyan University Athletic Hall of Fame.
After college he served two years in the United States Army and then taught and coached in Goodland and Moundridge, Kansas.
He married Marian Mathews on June 4, 1960. After spending a year in Lincoln, Nebraska, the couple moved to Ohio, where Ray used his National Science Foundation Grant to complete a master’s degree in mathematics at Bowling Green State University.
Upon graduation, Ray and Marian moved to Lawrence, where Ray went on to teach at Lawrence High School for the next thirty years, while also earning his doctorate in math education at the University of Kansas. During his tenure at LHS, the student body voted him Teacher of the Year five times.
After retirement from LHS, Ray volunteer taught at Bishop Seabury Academy. In 2006, Ray was elected to the Kansas Teachers’ Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed on only a few hundred educators in the state’s history.
Ray was a rabid sports fan dedicated to supporting the Chiefs, Royals, and Jayhawks.
Survivors include his wife of sixty-two years, Marian, his two sons and their wives, Mike and Katie of Wilton, Connecticut and Patrick and Candi of Lawrence, his three grandsons, Davis of San Francisco, Jackson of Atlanta, and Weston of New York City, and his brother Richard, and wife Jody, of Colorado Springs.
Memorial contributions may be made to Trinity Episcopal Church, Trinity Interfaith Food Pantry, Meals on Wheels, and/or Bishop Seabury Academy.
A Celebration of Life ceremony will be held for Raymond H. Wilbur at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1011 Vermont Street, in Lawrence. The celebration will also be streamed online via the church’s Facebook page at facebook.com/TrinityLawrenceKS.
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