Sharyn Tuers

Sharyn Quivey Tuers, 70, of Connestee Falls, died Friday, March 9, at Transylvania Regional Hospital after a long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Sharyn was born May 17, 1947 in Middletown, N.J., to John and Elizabeth Quivey. She was the second of five girls. She spent much of her life at the Jersey Shore and was a graduate of Syracuse University, with a bachelors degree in political science.
After college she became a reporter at the Asbury Park Press, the second largest newspaper in New Jersey and among the 100 largest daily newspapers in the nation. Later, she served as its lifestyle editor and, as she developed an expertise in newspaper design, she became design editor. She was responsible for the modernization of typography and layout of the newspaper in the late 1980s.
She and her husband, Raymond, also an editor at The Press, retired and moved to Connestee Falls in 1997. There, Sharyn, whom her husband proudly described as a Renaissance woman, took up a number of pursuits. She became an expert gardener, with her home plantings on the shore of Lake Atagahi featured two times on Connestee's annual Garden Tour. She wrote a book on Southern Appalachian gardening and was at one time secretary of Connestee's Mountain Gardeners club.
She also developed a similar expertise in jewelry design. Her necklaces have been carried at shops in the area at the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Cradle of Forestry and in downtown Brevard.
She was an accomplished artist in other ways, too. She designed and sewed a number of quilts - one with a Connestee homespun theme included her husband's sailboat on Lake Atagahi, her home, her children and even her cat. She also painted watercolors and knitted numerous scarves and blankets.
A testament to her lifelong love of literature was her collection of classics, in books that lined her shelves at home and on a crammed Kindle reader. Her eclectic tastes ran from the likes of Americans Mark Twain and Edgar Allan Poe to England's greatest… the likes of Dickens, Galsworthy, Forster, Chesterton and the Bronte sisters. She even joined the Anthony Trollope Society because she admired that Victorian era English novelist so much. She rarely missed a literature question while watching Jeopardy.
Sharyn was an avid fan of all puzzles. Her love of the language served her well with crosswords in particular and she became so adroit at them that several she devised herself were published in the New York Times.
But an abiding love of her life always remained her children and grandchildren. She was constantly sending them gifts and delighting in receiving photos and videos of them, especially first crawls and first steps. She never missed a birthday, or any other occasion that lent itself to a set of Legos or a baby doll stroller or educational picture puzzles. Newborns in the family promptly received a hand-knitted baby outfit, blue or pink.
Sharyn was a member of the Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church, where she served as a deacon. For several years she was an instructor in the church's summer Vacation Bible School, where she made up innovative and varied lessons, often centered on craft projects she invented herself.
"She had a supremely generous nature," said her husband, "and it was enhanced by her supremely creative spirit. Family and friends alike will miss her terribly."
Her former colleagues at The Press expressed similar feelings. "The news of Sharyn's passing shocked and saddened me beyond words," said Si Liberman, the retired Sunday editor of the newspaper, now living in Florida. "She was such a modest, talented, caring star during our Asbury Park working days."
Besides her husband of 40 years, she is survived by two sons, Matthew Tuers (wife Collyn), of Apex, N.C., and Douglas Tuers, currently serving in Tennessee in the Americorps program, and a daughter, Erica Courtine (husband Dan), of Fuquay-Varina, N.C. Also surviving are four sisters, Margaret DeMarco, of Lynchburg, Va.; Pam Koos, Tarpon Springs, Fla.; Sandra Croft, Red Bank, N.J., and Alyssa Guercia, Forest, Va., and three step-children: Claire Wilkinson, of New Port Richey, Fla.; Raymond Tuers, Jr., Swannanoa, N.C., and Janice Karakatsanis, Seminole, Fla.
Arrangements by the Moore-Blanchard Funeral Home, Brevard, are announced on its website, Moore-fh.com. Private viewing and burial services will be held for the family. A memorial service for all will be held at the Brevard-Davidson River Presbyterian Church, East Main Street, Brevard, at 1 p.m. Thursday, March 15; a reception will follow.