TORRINGTON – Funeral services for Alice Marie Thompson, 78, will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, September 19, 2023 at the Torrington United Methodist Church with Reverend Jeff Wayland officiating. Burial will follow in the Valley View Cemetery. Alice, an educator of over four generations of children, died on September 12, 2023 at Granite Rehabilitation in Cheyenne. Visitation will be Monday at the funeral home from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and the casket will be open briefly prior to the service at the church. Arrangements are by the Colyer Funeral Home and condolences may be sent to www.colyerfuneralhome.com.
Alice was born in Thermopolis, on September 25, 1944. She was the second daughter of a butcher turned flower shop owner and still kept in contact with her childhood friends. She and her sisters would play Kick-the-Can, Hide and Seek, ride bikes and swim in the mineral pools until dark. During her school years Alice was in band, cheerleading, the homecoming queen, and the Job’s Daughters Honored Queen. She attended Chadron State College in Nebraska where she met Warren Thompson. They married and both graduated with teaching degrees and had a daughter Kristy. She was also Homecoming Queen at Chadron State College. Alice began her love of teaching at a young age and started her forty-six-year teaching career in a one room schoolhouse in Nebraska. She later accepted a teaching job in Torrington, at Goshen County School District where she taught first grade for forty-five years impacting many young lives. She was known as the teacher who could teach anyone to read, and her co-workers described her as enthusiastic, exciting, creative and kind. She also taught for the Migrant Program every summer in Torrington. Besides educating her school children, Alice spent the rest of her time with her three grandchildren Quinne, Beau, and Baylee, and raised her great granddaughter, Avyanna until the age of thirteen. She and her daughter Kristy enjoyed shopping and going out for lunch. Alice loved the beach, digging up sand dollars, and spent every summer in Hilton Head, South Carolina with her sisters Janet and Florence.
Alice is survived by her daughter Kristy Thompson-King of Cheyenne, Wyoming; sister and brother-in-law Janet and Kenny Schaffer of Sioux Falls, South Dakota and sister Florence Deterding of Fairfax, Virginia; brother-in-law Bill Deterding of Bradenton, Florida; grandchildren Quinne King-Yetter of Cheyenne, Beau King of Casper, Wyoming, and Baylee King of Cheyenne; great grandchildren Avyanna Martinez and Zayne Yetter both of Cheyenne; and many nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents Stanley and Mary Eleanor Hopcus.
