SHIRLEY ELIZABETH GILMORE

Shirley Elizabeth Gilmore, 73, of Willard passed away on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, at Maranatha Village Rehabilitation Center in Springfield.  She was born in Plattsburg, Kan. on Jan. 25, 1952; the youngest of three children born to Margaret Juanita (Fisher) and Lowry M. Gilmore.  
She graduated from Willard High School in 1970 as class valedictorian. She then attended Missouri State University where she completed her Bachelor of Science degree in history and geology in 1974. She then moved to Marquand, in southeast Missouri, where she taught for the next 25 years at Marquand-Zion High School.
After retiring, she returned to Willard where she would care for her mother and eventually build a new home on the Gilmore Family Farm. It was during this time that she completed her master’s degree in geology at Southwest Missouri State University, worked as the Educational Director for Fantastic Caverns, and became a Lay Minister of the United Methodist Church. As a Lay Minister, she pastored Elwood Methodist Church and later accepted the position of church secretary at Pathways United Methodist Church in Springfield, where she remained until 2021.  
She was also a science-fiction author and, in 2014, she published the first in a series known as “Bucky and The Lukefahr Ladies,” which has evolved into its eighth volume (which was in the final editing stages at the time of her passing) plus two spin-off books from the series.
She is survived by her brothers, Lowry Michael Gilmore of Lexington, Va. and Daniel (Janice) Gilmore of Willard; four nephews; two nieces as well as several great-nephews and great-nieces.  
She was preceded in death by her parents and sister-in-law Mary Ann Middlemas-Gilmore.
Visitation will begin at 11 a.m on Thursday, March 6, at Pathways United Methodist Church in Springfield followed by funeral services at 1 p.m. Interment will be at Greenlawn Cemetery.
Arrangements have been entrusted to the care and direction of Wilson-Griffin Funeral Home in Ash Grove.