Lucile Burgess Obituary, Death – On Sunday, April 7, 2024, at 2 pm, the Dawson Street Baptist Church, where Lucile Jackson Burgess was a member, will host services for Lucile, who passed away at the age of 97, from Thomasville. An officiant will be Reverend Lee Waller. At Laurel Hill Cemetery, the funeral will be held. On Thursday, April 4, 2024, Mrs. Burgess passed away quietly in her home.
She was born on January 21, 1927, in Thomasville, to Joe Wiley Jackson and Ethel Landreth Jackson, the parents of the late Joe. She wed Grady C. Burgess on August 20, 1950, and he passed away on December 8, 2000, before she did. She went on to become a teacher after finishing high school at Thomasville. She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Valdosta State University and a master’s degree in the same field from Florida State University.
At Pavo High School, where she first began teaching, she formed connections that would last a lifetime. In 1954, she went back to Thomasville to teach fifth and sixth grades in the Thomasville City School System. Before that, she taught sixth grade at Southside Elementary School in Cairo. She started her 21-year tenure as principal of Jerger Elementary School in 1963 and remained there until her retirement in 1986.
She was active in many groups outside of education, including the following: the Thomasville Garden Club, Inc., the Alpha Delta Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma, the Thomasville-Thomas County Retired Educators, the Killarney Queen Garden Club, and the Lapham Patterson House Board of Directors in the 1990s. The 1981 Woman of the Year was Mrs. Burgess.
