Loyal Heights Elementary teacher Sally Moneda dies

Sally Moneda, Loyal Heights Elementary teacher, died on Thursday (Jan.3) after a 2-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 47. According to our news partners, The Seattle Times, she spent her last days on a boat she and her husband bought in October, a 45-foot motor yacht named “Eucharisteo,” docked at Shilshole Marina. Her husband, Willie, and sister, Dawn Nilsen, were with her when she died.

Mrs. Moneda taught in a multi-grade, team-taught classroom at Loyal Heights, and directed the annual fifth-grade play. The Times reports that her classroom was known for active learning. “The teachers held an Oregon Trail Museum Night, in which students told their parents and other visitors about the history of stopping places along the trail. They organized a Medieval Night, with a castle that had to be entered through a drawbridge, a banquet hall for royalty and a curtain that opened onto the lives of peasants,” according to the Times.

She is survived by her husband, sister Dawn, of Ferndale, a stepson, Kevin Moneda, of Seattle; her parents, Tom and Beverly Peterson, of Sedro-Woolley; brothers Tony Ehlert, of Sedro-Woolley, and Tom Zehrung, of Beaumont, Texas; and sister Teresa Potashner, of San Diego. She was preceded in death by brother Darrell Ehlert, of Sedro-Woolley.

There will be  a graveside service in Sedro-Woolley on Saturday, and a memorial service at Mars Hill Church in Ballard on Jan. 19. For the full obituary from the Times, click here.