Shelley Rex began as a consultant and academic coach with aha! Process in 2003. A passionate educator and innovative administrator, you can read more about Shelley on her official aha! Process bio page. She is already missed.

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Remembrances

Ruby Payne:
Shelley was an extraordinary human being, an excellent consultant and educator, and one of the most resilient human beings I have ever met. Her courage and faith in the midst of pain was phenomenal. I am grateful that she could pass to the other side and be free of pain. I know that she must be standing at the right hand of God.

Patti Albright:
I had the distinct honor to shadow Shelley ten years ago when I began my journey with aha! Process. I was amazed at the rapport she had clearly established with the math teachers she was coaching. I was nervous about my ability to communicate the way she did. She pulled me aside and told me that I had a God-given talent and that using it would always be perfect. She was and will continue to be a beacon to everyone who has ever met her. What a gift she was to my life!!!

Donna Magee:
Words don’t adequately describe the heart and character of Shelley Rex. She was the ultimate professional, always willing to take on any challenge that was offered her. She had incredible gifts of understanding and passion that she brought to everything she did. I can only imagine the thousands of lives that Shelley impacted through her teaching and consulting. Though it sounds trite at a time like this, she truly made a difference in this world! For all Shelley gave as a teacher/consultant and friend, probably her greatest impact came in the witness she provided to all of us as she stared cancer in the face and battled it with a fierce determination and constant faith in our Lord and Savior. I haven’t fully comprehended that Shelley is no longer with us on this earth, but I will always be grateful that she was my friend and my colleague. May God’s grace and comfort be with her family and all who loved and cared for her as it is a sad time and great loss for all of us.

Judy Sain:
Shelley Rex made a profound impact on so many people. Whatever Shelley did, she did it well—from teaching students and sharing her expertise with educators to her faith in God and her love for her family and friends. Her positive spirits even during the hard times were a true testament of her faith. May we use her example of faith to encourage each of us. Shelley, you will be sorely missed.

Sue Nelle DeHart:
It was such an honor just to know Shelley Rex as a person, an educator, and a child of the God she loved with her whole being. However, to be a friend, colleague, and an adult student of this master teacher was to also be personally blessed beyond words. I would like to address that.

Her passion for showing students the love of learning was infectious; you just couldn’t be in her presence without wanting to be that kind of teacher. Shelley was extremely knowledgeable in content and how to present it, but she also had “the gift” for being persistent in finding the key to help a student reach his own understanding. Students were also drawn into learning by watching her model her own interests and joy in learning things in great depth. By identifying with their teacher—through rapport, caring, laughter, fun, and mutual respect—Shelley’s students were naturally excited to explore and sample her interests and pursuits.

There was certainly nothing pedestrian about Shelley Rex. There was nothing ordinary about what she did or thought. There are people who understand the importance of their work so clearly that they consistently probe at the edges of its paradigms to be certain that there is not more or better work possible, and Shelley was one of those rare intellects.

Shifting and changing educational paradigms is a risky business. It takes wisdom and courage to create a new ideology; the courage to take the scorn of those without vision; the strength to carry along those who have vision but no courage. Most of all, it takes the kind of caring that makes you and I want to see any risk for children as a reasonable one.

There is no way to measure Shelley’s impact on our future world through the students she has touched personally or through those of us she taught how to engage students in their learning. Catch her passion! She is still and will always be asking us to make things better for our students.

We love and thank you, Shelley.

Bethanie Tucker:
I will never forget the first time I met Shelley, when she entertained aha! consultants at a company meeting over ten years ago. During her delightful presentation she read profound statements to which we all responded, “Aha!” She amazed me that day and every day since then. What a wonderful Christmas gift God gave to the angels.

Jim Littlejohn:
Shelley will be truly missed. I can see her beautiful smile and recall our wonderful conversations. She had the ability and integrity to let me know when my ideas or thoughts were on target or more often than not—way off base. Shelley was a master teacher and presenter. She possessed the rare combination of grit, wit, intelligence, grace, and compassion. She was a teacher’s teacher. Those of us who were blessed to call her a friend will never forget her. Her legacy will live on in the hearts and minds of all the people she touched.