Joanne Lindsey Dickson, a resident of Marco Island, Florida, a former longtime South Pasadena resident, died peacefully after a short illness on October 8, 2015, surrounded by the love of family and friends.

Joanne was born in Los Angeles on September 21, 1943, and moved with her family to South Pasadena in the mid-1950s after her architect father had been engaged to redesign the South Pasadena High School campus. She graduated from SPHS in 1961 where she was active in student life and, as a song girl, cheered on her future husband, David Dickson '61, as he quarterbacked the Tigers to their first-ever CIF championship.

Joanne married David in 1965 and, after he earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, they returned to South Pasadena to raise their children. She joined Herbert Hawkins Real Estate, a career that ultimately led to her opening Simply Perfect Interior Design on Mission Street. She was an active volunteer in her children's school and extracurricular activities and, in the early 1980s, raised awareness of teen drug and alcohol abuse by bringing the Parent Alert program to our community. She also became involved with the Pasadena Boys' Choir, handling their bookkeeping, recruitment, fundraising, and wardrobe. The Dicksons hosted the first-ever Big Event major donor fundraiser for the South Pasadena Educational Foundation which, 30 years later, has evolved into the annual SPEF Parti Gras.

In the early 1990s, Joanne moved with David to Austin, Minnesota, where he joined Hormel Foods as a Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Corporate Development. They traveled extensively in Asia and Europe, once as honored guests at a banquet hosted by the mayor of Beijing. Joanne returned the favor by cooking a seven-course Mexican dinner for a visiting delegation from China. During that period, while continuing a real estate career that began in the 1970s, Joanne volunteered in her new community and was actively involved in the restoration of Austin's Historic Paramount Theater. Joanne continued with her love of interior design helping many of her new friends in Austin with decorating. She greatly enjoyed updating the Country Club in Austin and decorating it at Christmas. She was also active in PEO. Joanne and David brought their Southern California hospitality with them to Austin, hosting an annual Battle of the Barbecues that became a highlight of Austin's social life.

After David's retirement, he and Joanne established the Dickson Family Endowment to support athletics and extracurricular activities at South Pasadena High School and provide scholarships for outstanding Tiger SPHS graduating seniors. They attended the high school's Senior Awards Night and presented scholarships to the first two honorees in June 2002, three months before David's death. Joanne then moved to Marco Island, Florida, where she continued to enjoy hosting family and friends from Minnesota and California and engaging in community volunteerism. For more than three decades Joanne hosted events, volunteered, and provided support to the Pasadena Boys Choir and Rio Hondo Preparatory School. Joanne's love of her life, the community, was never more evident than when she hosted numerous class reunions for South Pasadena High School graduating classes of her generation (the 1960s) and her children's (the 1980s). She also made her home on Garfield Avenue the home of the Pasadena Boys' Choir.

Joanne is survived by her son, Jeff Dickson '86, of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, her daughter Cassandra Stajduhar '88, of Arcadia; her four grandchildren, Garrett and Paige Dickson and Emma and Hannah Stajduhar; her sister, Dianne Lindsey-Walsh '57, of Arcadia; her sister Judy Lindsey Berry '61, of Arizona; her brother, James Lindsey '59, of Elkhart, Indiana; and her sister-in-law, Nancy Dickson Chamberlain '66, of Fallbrook, California.