CEDAR FALLS--Dr. Lois Shefte Potter, Ph.D., 74, of Cedar Falls, died Saturday, November 27, 1999, at Sartori Memorial Hospital, of lung cancer. She was born December 15, 1924, in Volga, South Dakota, daughter of Engebret K. and Laura Johnson Shefte. She married Albert Andrew Potter on June 18, 1960, in Iowa City. He preceded her in death.
Dr. Potter graduated from Yankton College, Yankton, South Dakota, in 1946 with certifications in English, speech, social studies, and Spanish. She received additional training in radio and drama at the University of South Dakota in 1947 and received her master's degree in speech pathology from the University of Iowa in 1950. She completed her doctorate in speech pathology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1959.
She began teaching in 1946 at a high school in Redfield, South Dakota, and from 1947 to 1958 taught at Yankton High School. She worked in private practice with aphasic speech patients in Burlington during the summer of 1950, then joined the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa in 1950 as a speech and hearing consultant at the Malcom Price Laboratory School. While doing graduate work from 1953 to 1954 she served as a speech therapist on the medical diagnostic team of the Cerebral Palsy Center at the University of Wisconsin Hospitals. She returned to Price Lab School in 1954 and remained there as a speech therapist and as a member of the UNI Graduate Faculty, retiring in 1991. She served in several officer positions of the Iowa and national chapters of the Council for Exceptional Children, the Iowa and the American Speech and Hearing Associations, and the Association for Student Teaching.
Survived by: a son, Lee S. of Morenci, Arizona; a stepson, Don Potter of Beavercreek Ohio; and two stepgrandchildren. Preceded in death by: a brother, Duane Shefte.
Memorial services: 1 p.m. Tuesday at Dahl-Van Hove-Schoof Funeral Home. There will be no visitation.
Memorials: may be directed to The University of Iowa Foundation, P.O. Box 4550, Iowa City, Iowa 52244, for the Albert A. and Lois Shefte Potter fund for prevention of blindness at the Center for Macular Degeneration.
Copyright Waterloo Courier, November 29, 1999, p. B2.