Cheryl Jean Richards

Services for Cheryl Richards, 78, formerly of Globe, will be held at Whitney & Murphy Funeral Home on Indian School Road in Phoenix at 11 a.m. on September 14. Cheryl passed away in Mesa on August 2, 2024 from complications of Alzheimer's. A proud Globe native, Cheryl's family first arrived in Arizona in 1913 when her German-born great-grandfather, an employee of ASARCO in Mexico, got work at the smelter facility in Winkleman after leaving Mexico due to Pancho Villa's attacks on the company's facilities during the Revolution. Her Mexico-born grandmother later settled in Globe, residing in a bungalow on US 60 near East Globe School until her death in the 1980s. Cheryl grew up in Miami Gardens with many of her cousins before the family moved to a ranch at Dripping Springs. While attending Globe High School, Cheryl was active in music and drama. After graduating from Arizona State University with an education degree and completing her student teaching hours in a one-room schoolhouse near the Mexican border, she married and briefly lived the life of an Army spouse before returning to Arizona.

Settling back in Globe to raise her family, Cheryl began a thirty-year teaching career with the Globe School District. She taught math at East Globe; music and elementary grades at Copper Rim, and, finally, English at Globe High School after she had "retired". The opportunity to teach the same kids in high school that she had taught at Copper Rim brought her great joy. Other professional highlights included being awarded Gila County Teacher of the Year in the 1990s and serving as a Representative and the Treasurer for the Arizona Education Association in the 1980s. Cheryl was active in Eastern Star in the early 1980s, in the restoration of Besh-Ba-Gowah in the late 1980s, as an actress and director with the theater at the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts in the 1990s and 2000s, and as choir director at Holy Angels Catholic Church in the 2000s. Later in life she enjoyed traveling, first to Italy and later, cruises.

Cheryl was briefly survived by her second husband, James Richards, before he joined her in peaceful rest on August 25, 2024. She is survived by her brother John Frazier, her children Shannon (Lou) Pontigon, Ryan Ferland, and Sara Ferland, and three grandchildren. Her parents Bert and Ida Frazier and her sister Carol Carl preceded her in death.