SHARON HAGGARD CROSBY (Age 69) Following a brave three year battle with cancer, Sharon Haggard Crosby passed away at Georgetown University Hospital on October 20, 2012 with her husband and two adult children by her side. Sharon was the beloved wife of Colonel (ret.) George Trent Crosby. In 2012, Sharon and Trent celebrated their Golden 50 year wedding anniversary. Sharon was the loving mother of daughter, Catharine Crosby Grose and husband Andrew Grose, and son, Colonel Charles Trent Crosby and wife Vanessa Crosby. She was a devoted grandmother to five grandchildren: Connor Crosby, Taylor Crosby, Tanner Crosby, Laura Grose, and John Grose. She is survived by her sister Mary Susan Clifton and husband David Clifton, niece Caitlin Clifton, nephew Jonathon Clifton of McAlester, OK, sister-in-law and brother-in-law Kit and Glenn Brown and niece and nephew, Beth and Glenn Brown. Sharon was a passionate reader, cook, gardener, mother and grandmother, and a person of great beauty, warmth, intelligence and compassion. She will be dearly missed. Sharon was born in 1943 in McAlester, OK to the late Charles Walter and Helen Haggard. She grew up in Pittsburg County, OK where her father was the county sheriff and then county tax assessor. She had a lifelong love of the cultural arts. Sharon began her study of dance in Oklahoma City, later opening her own school of dance while in high school. She attended the University of Oklahoma where she majored in Romance Languages and dance. There she studied ballet under the direction of world renowned dancers, Yvonne Chouteau and Miguel Terekhov. While in school, Sharon met her future husband, an Army 1st LT stationed at Ft. Sill. She began her exciting life as an Army wife when they married in 1962. The Crosby's lived all over the world, including tours in Italy, Korea, and Northern Virginia. She put her early training in ballet to use by teaching dance through Army Recreational Service programs and also ran an independent dance studio. While raising her family, Sharon also devoted much of her life to community service such as Army Community Service, the Girl Scouts and the Cub and Boy Scouts. She ran tutoring services for local schools, was active in Little Theater , served on the Prince William County Cultural Arts Board and later as a committee chair in her home owners' association After her husband retired from the Army in 1987, the Crosby's settled in Alexandria, Va. Sharon worked as a Department of the Army civilian for almost 20 years, providing stability and continuity to the military community. She was dedicated to the Army, soldiers, and Army civilians. During her long service in Army Foreign Liaison, Sharon touched the lives of thousands of foreign military attaches as she saw to the needs of the attaches and their families from 105 countries from arrival to departure. Upon her retirement in 2006, she was awarded the Army Meritorious Civilian Service Award, the equivalent of the Legion of Merit. A former supervisor wrote upon hearing of her death wrote that there will be "tears all over the world tonight". Friends are invited to Google Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home, Alexandria and sign Sharon's guestbook or share a memory. Funeral services will be conducted at the Memorial Chapel, Fort Myer and Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, April 19 at 3 PM and will be followed by a reception at the Ft Myer Officers' Club. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Sharon's name to Fisher House Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project.
--Published in The Washington Post on March 8, 2013