Obituary of Barbara-Jean Jordan

Barbara "Bobbie" Jordan died peacefully on Sunday morning, Jan. 16, at the Gosnell House Hospice Center in Scarborough, completing her two-year journey of living with ovarian cancer. Her life partner, Sarah Sprogell, was at her side as she quietly took her last gentle breath. Born in Bakersfield, Calif., Bobbie grew up in Denver, Colo., and graduated from Colorado State University at Fort Collins in 1964 with a bachelors in health and physical education. After teaching for a year in Wyoming, including work at the Wind River Indian Reservation, she traveled to Maine and attended the University of Maine, where she graduated in 1967 with a master's degree in education. She continued to work in the field of higher education, teaching and coaching at the State University of New York at Albany in 1968 and at Wellesley College from 1969 to 1977. After leaving Wellesley College, she worked for the Plymouth (Mass.) public schools as a team leader for the Special Needs Intervention Program for two years, and then worked for the Brookline (Mass.) School Department as a curriculum coordinator and teacher of health and physical education from 1977 to 1982. Bobbie's love of education kept her advancing in her career, enrolling in advanced studies at University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1982, and serving as principal for the Leverett Elementary School from 1985 to 1990. Her continuing commitment to the education of children led her to a job in Maine, as principal of Williams-Cone School in Topsham, where she worked from 1990 to 2001, and later to Augusta, where she worked until her retirement in 2008 as the director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Augusta Public Schools. During this time, Bobbie also enrolled and graduated in 2001 from Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with a doctorate in education.Bobbie was a leader and an educator in all facets of her life. She served as president of the local chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, a national organization for women educators. She was also involved the Maine Principals Alliance, and worked to develop mentorship programs for new teachers and principals in Maine. Bobbie traveled to Eastern Europe just as that area was opening to Western visitors, as part of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform in 1999, and she traveled to Japan in 2002 as part of the Fulbright Memorial Teachers Exchange Program. Additionally, Bobbie served as clerk on several key committees at Durham Friends (Quaker) Meeting. She sang with Women in Harmony, a local women's chorus, for 15 years. She created and directed the Augusta 21st Century Program for children. She traveled to Kenya in 2008 to help provide a summer camp experience for AIDS orphans through the Friends of Kakamega. She maintained her support for this outstanding program by sponsoring a young girl's attendance at school.Bobbie is predeceased by her father, Lorne Jordan. She is survived by Sarah Sprogell, her loving partner of 29 years; their son Agostino Petrillo and his wife, Allegra; and daughters Ariel and Thalia of Northampton, Mass., and Chelsea and Emily Craine, of Blacksburg, Va.; their son Dominic Petrillo and his son, Lincoln, of Freeport; her mother, Helen Irene (Hall) Jordan, and her sister, Pamela (Jordan) Costa, both of Littleton, Colo.; her niece, Angela (Costa) Hawes, and husband, Jason, of Colorado; and her nephew, Frank Costa, and wife, Sarah, of Pensacola, Fla. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Jan. 22, at 1 p.m. at the Durham Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, 534 Quaker Meetinghouse Road in Durham. Visits of Remembrance are at the family home in Freeport, 31 South St., this week through Friday, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Friends of Kakamega, 51 Hunter Road, Freeport; or to the Augusta 21st Century Program, 22 Armory St., Augusta.