The Soroptimist International Club lost a very valued long-time member, Dorothy Dewan, on Friday, March 18, 2022.

What can we say about Dorothy? She was always there ready to pitch in on a project, as an officer, adviser to other members and more. A member since 1985, Dorothy served in about every office of our club at one time or another. She also served on the South Central Region Board as District II Director and encouraged our members to serve the region too.

When we had our sales, Dorothy was almost always there helping to sack up purchases, take money or make a crockpot of soup for the workers. When it came to the club board, even though she wasn’t currently an official board member, she agreed in recent years to serve as parliamentarian and attend board meetings. She was always ready to give her advice.

On the region level she most recently attended the Fall Region Meeting in 2021 and was planning to go with President Terri Buesing to the 2022 South Central Spring Region Conference in April in Amarillo. When she didn’t attend a region meeting, other region members from other clubs always asked about Dorothy. South Central Region (AR, KS, LA, MO, OK, southern IL, and TX) selected Dorothy to be the first recipient of the Lou Kirby Best Woman of the Year Award. This award was created to honor that special club member who has made an outstanding contribution to Soroptimist over the years including club, district and region levels. Dorothy was all of that and even more as a member of Soroptimist’s Laurel Society.

Born and raised in the Enid and Carmen areas, Dorothy married James McKinney in 1952 and together they had three sons, Michael, Keith and Timothy. As an Air Force family they lived in New York, Key West, Kansas City, Bermuda, Louisiana and Oklahoma. In 1971, she married Edward Dewan and went to Iran for his job. We loved hearing the story of when they were caught up in the revolution when the Shah fell from power, causing them to quickly leave the country.

After coming back to Oklahoma they settled in Ponca City. She went to work for Kent Phipps as a legal assistant and loved working for him until he closed his Ponca City office. From there she worked for the Kay County Court Clerk’s office retiring in 2000.

In addition to our Soroptimist Club here in Ponca City, Dorothy was a member of First United Methodist Church, was actively involved with the United Methodist Women, was a member of the Fanchon Chapter Order of the Eastern Star serving as Worthy Matron, a member of Singles Network, the Red Hat Club, and IP 2000 Investors Club.

Dorothy is survived by her son Michael McKinney and grandson Sean McKinney, brother and sister-in-law Carl and Paula Frech, and sister Charlene Curry.

Dorothy requested memorials be made to our club, Soroptimist International of Ponca City or the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation for arthritis.