Betty Jo (Day) Banks

Betty Jo (Day) Banks, age 87, passed away on Saturday, May 30, 2020, at the Downs Care & Rehab facility in Downs.

She was born February 26, 1933 in Washington, KS to Everett E. & Louisa (Durst) Day. She attended and graduated high school in Colorado Springs, CO before attending the University of Colorado with plans to study criminal law. Plans were changed when she married Dale A. Banks at the Rose Valley Methodist Church on December 2, 1951. Betty raised three daughters, as well as helped start Kindergarten classes in Downs, worked as a Stanley Home Products representative and worked with the county extension. She then became Activites Director at Mid America Nursing Home in Downs. She received her Nursing Home Administrator's license and began as administrator at Parkview Care Center in Osborne, a job she held for over 30 years until her retirement in 2012.

She was a member of the Downs United Methodist Church where she served as lay leader, choir director and Sunday School teacher. She was involved with the Miss Solomon Valley Beauty Pageant as well as Kansas Junior Miss. She was also active in the Downs Lions Club as well as their District and State programs, and she was also a member of the VFW Auxiliary in Osborne.

Declining health placed her in the Downs Nursing Home in January 2020 so she could be closer to her daughter, Dalene, to visit.

She is preceded in death by: her parents; husband, Dale A.; eldest daughter, Rebecca Louise; sisters, Vivian McAuley, Anita Rieke (and husband, Willard); brother, George Houdek (and wife, Dorothy); and nephew, Terry Rieke.

She is survived by: daughters, Joyce Pearl Wiskur of Harrisonville, MO, and Dalene A. Banks of Downs; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren; and a sister-in-law, Lois (Banks) McElroy.

A Memorial Service will be held Friday, June 12, 2020, beginning at 2:30 p.m. at Downs United Methodist Church, 1000 N. Morgan Ave., Downs, KS 67437.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorials to Parkview Care Center in Osborne and Solomon Valley Hospice in Beloit and may be sent in care of Clark-Gashaw Mortuary, 238 North First Street, Osborne, KS 67473.

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