VERNA MILLARD
January 18, 1936 – July 26, 2025
Verna Millard passed away peacefully on July 26, 2025, surrounded by family. She was born on January 18, 1936, to Roy Lee Landers and Estella Ellen Bashor Landers in Osawatomie, Kan. She attended schools there and graduated from Osawatomie High School with the class of 1953. She took dance lessons throughout her school years and opened “Verna’s Dance Studio” in Osawatomie, producing her first “Dance Review” recital at the Municipal Auditorium in June of 1953 when she was just 17 years old. She had a second dance studio in Osawatomie a decade later. Verna became proficient in many things; besides sewing, crochet and needlework, she was an excellent pianist and could type over 120 words per minute.
Verna married Joseph LeRoy Millard in 1953 and later divorced. She remarried him in 1960, divorcing again in 1965. Daughter Lynda Diane Millard was born during their second marriage. Verna moved to Houston, Texas, with their daughter and Lynda grew up attending schools there and spending her summers in Kansas.
In 1983, Verna moved to the Cayman Islands. She later spent a year cruising the western Caribbean while living and working on the cruise ship Boheme. After that, she lived in Miami, Fla., before heading back to the Cayman Islands to work for a scuba diving company and became a certified scuba diver. When she returned to the states, she lived in California and Las Vegas for a few years, returning to Houston in 1991.
Lynda had invited her father, LeRoy, to visit her and her twins, Tabber and Taylor, at their home in Houston when she discovered her mother, Verna, was arriving the same week. LeRoy and Verna reunited there and after a visit with their grandchildren, went back to Kansas together. They later flew to Las Vegas and were remarried to each other for the third time, on their original wedding date of April 28.
Verna and LeRoy lived in Beagle, Kan., and then near Lane. Taylor and Tabber went to live with them for awhile, and when the grandkids moved back to Texas, they sold everything and bought an Airstream travel trailer. They spent the next 10 years traveling throughout the U.S. and having the time of their lives, landing back in Osawatomie when they were done.
Verna became very involved in the Osawatomie Alumni Association and was instrumental in developing a website for them, compiling and organizing decades of photos and information. She was given the ‘Outstanding Classmate Award’ by the class of 1953, and the Osawatomie Chamber of Commerce awarded her ‘Osawatomie Citizen of the Year’ in 2016.
LeRoy passed away in 2014, and a few years later, Lynda moved to Osawatomie to care for Verna. They moved to Fayetteville, Ark., in 2019. With the help of the Pace of the Ozarks organization, Lynda was able to care for Verna at home until she moved into the Maples at Har-Ber Meadows, where she received outstanding care for the remainder of her life.
Verna is survived by her daughter Lynda, grandchildren Tabber Millard and Taylor Millard Montgomery (Trey), great-grandchildren Kiley (Chase), Kingston, Ransom, Marvel and Toren, and Verna and LeRoy’s ‘bonus’ child, Ginger Doss. Verna was preceded in death by her husband LeRoy Millard, great-granddaughter Raegan, sister Carol Lee Parker, brother Sam Landers and her parents.
Verna requested no funeral. The family will take her ashes to Mound Creek Cemetery in the near future.
