Joan Johnston Hubbard

A memorial service is 1 p.m. Jan. 9 at New Beginnings Christian Church in Washoe Valley for longtime Bently Nevada and General Electric employee Joan Johnston Hubbard, 68, who died in El Centro, Calif., on Dec. 6, 2009, after a long battle with cancer.

Born Sept. 22, 1941, in Washington, D.C., to Lt. Cmdr. J.M. and Marie Foster Johnston. After graduating as the valedictorian from Holtville High School and later from University of California, Riverside, she became a programmer, working in Woomera, Australia, for 11⁄2 years. Once back in the U.S., she stopped in Minden to take a job at Bently Nevada with plans to work just long enough to get enough money for film. She stayed 30-plus years with Bently Nevada and General Electric, where she retired in 2006.

Mrs. Hubbard was a pilot, accomplished skier and ski instructor, scholar, and photographer. She had a great love of art, and enjoyed the beauty of the world around her.

She was preceded in death by her father and her stepfather, W. D. Payne.

Mrs. Hubbard is survived by husband Jim Hubbard; stepchildren Jeff Hubbard, Jill Johnson, and Paul Hubbard; mother Marie Payne; sister Barbara Holiday; brother Doug Johnston; stepbrother Dale Payne; and stepsister Donna Miller.

Donations in her memory may be made toward a memorial bench in Gardnerville by contacting Carol Sandmeier or Paula Lochridge with Main Street Gardnerville at 782-8027. Donations will be accepted until Feb. 1, 2010. The bench will be placed in Gardnerville by March 2010 and any donations in excess of the $1,000 cost of the bench will be given to the Carson Valley Arts Council in her honor.