ArVel White peacefully passed away at 80 years old Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in Edmond OK. ArVel was born June 12, 1945, to Arvel and Velma (Dobbs) Jones in Hooker, OK. She grew up in Hooker, graduating from Hooker with the class of 1963. She attended Oklahoma University and Oklahoma Panhandle State University graduating with degrees in English and Mathematics. She later got her Master of Library Science. She taught school in Derby, KS in 1973 and ‘74 then Hooker from 1975 to 1990 and retired from teaching from Liberal, KS high school in 2006.

With her lifelong friend Ed and Karen Brady (Toadvine) as witnesses, she married her high school sweetheart Les on October 29, 1966, in Clayton, NM. Les and ArVel were married for 30 years until his passing in 1997. She is survived by her sons Ed and Jennifer White of Edmond, OK, Sean and Jennifer White of Bartlesville, OK, brother John and Janie Jones of Blanco, TX sister Drue and Kirk Washburn of Edmond, OK and sister Susan and Jim Thomson of Dallas, TX grandchildren: Hayden, Mitchell, Aston & Asia (Ed), and Kyla & Kyra (Sean). She is preceded in death by her husband Les White, her parents Velma and Arvel Jones, stepmother Martha Jones and sister Debbie St. Clair.

There weren’t many pies ArVel didn’t have her fingers in. ArVel was an avid musician using her piano and organ skills to accompany school solo and choir singers, church choir, weekly church services, school musicals, community events and Hooker Troopers melodrama performers. She wrote the scripts for high school swim shows, melodramas, three volumes of the Hooker History and “The Whitehouse Cookbook”. ArVel was always going somewhere or doing something. In addition to teaching English and math classes, ArVel was the high school librarian at both Hooker and Liberal. She had a passion for books and making them available to all. That love of books and reading spilled over to her community where she volunteered at the Olive Warner Memorial Library. Countless grant applications, fund raisers, book drives and Saturday morning readings were done on behalf of the community library.

In her later years of teaching and in retirement, ArVel traveled on several mission trips with her church. She also loved to travel with family and friends. She visited England, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and many places in the U.S. She always spoke fondly of the people she met on those travels. She also spent several weeks studying the writing of Mark Twain in his home in New York. She also was heavily involved in making quilts and scrap books for her children and grandchildren and various causes. Sean would joke of the volume of quilts she made: “We could stay warm for years just burning the quilts for heat.” She did not like that joke. She was a staff writer for the Hooker Advance newspaper for several years in the early 2000s. In 2010, she relocated from Hooker, OK to Edmond, OK to

be closer to her son Ed and his family. In Edmond, she volunteered making dresses for her church to give to under-privileged girls, delivered meals to the elderly and accompanying choir groups and also played regularly for the residents of various nursing homes. In fact, she was so busy that Ed joked about how difficult it was to get on her social calendar.

ArVel was loved by many, and she touched many lives. Her presence will be missed, but her contributions to her many communities will live on.

The family asks that any memorials be made to your local library in memory of ArVel.

Memorial services will be at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, June 30, 2025 at Matthews Funeral Home in Edmond, OK 73003.

Graveside services will be at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 at Hooker City Cemetery in Hooker, Oklahoma.