Sarah Rector Aguilar

January 15, 1960 - May 15, 2022

Like the Mozart piano sonatas she played so beautifully, Sarah Rector Aguilar now hears the music of the heavens. Surrounded by family, Sarah died in her South Pasadena home. She was 62 and the cause of death was breast cancer. A renaissance woman to her core, Sarah played four instruments, was a two-sport college athlete, a medaled Marathon runner, beloved educator, trainer of dogs, scholar at Claremont McKenna College and devoted family member. She read everything, memorized stats from the World Almanac better than an A.I. program and never forgot a name.

Sarah stopped at nothing to connect with minds that saw the world differently. A respected educator of special needs children in the Pasadena Unified School District's San Rafael, Webster and Jefferson elementary schools, Sarah's unique curriculum and talents are remembered by many. Few knew that Sarah was rumored to be the next Joan Benoit in the early 1990s. In only her second marathon ever, on the freezing hills of Seattle, she blasted to the finish in first place, and only minutes behind Olympic qualifying times. Her father Irving used to wait in a lawn chair at the finish line and sister Ann biked beside as a pacer. Having lost her husband Mark to a stroke in 2012, Sarah went on to parent Albert and Alexi and care for her mother Shelby. Sarah's life was one of service, a brilliant, beautiful soul who will be missed dearly.

She is preceded in death by parents Irving and Shelby Rector and is survived by son Albert Aguilar '16, daughter Alexi Seale and sisters Ann Rector '83 and Lucy Rector Filppu '81.

Pasadena Star-News, May 17, 2022