Remembering Joan Slavik Dowdle Gura
Joan Slavik Dowdle Gura died at home on 26 June 2025, surrounded by her family. She was born on 26 September 1939 in Murphy, North Carolina, to George Glenn and Josephine Marie Slavik Dowdle.
After graduating from Annandale High School in 1958, Joan married James "Jim" Gura in 1959. They celebrated sixty-five years of marriage and raised five children together: Debbie, John, Charles, Kathy, and Chrissy. Over the years they lived in several states before settling in Plano, Texas, where they became active in Catholic renewal life and community.
The obituary highlights Joan's strong Catholic faith, daily prayer, gift for hospitality, and long public-service career. She worked for Plano ISD for more than twenty years and built the district's truancy program, helping at-risk students until her retirement in 2002.
See also Joan's biographical page in The Family.