December 13, 1935 – October 28, 2024

Sonya Karen Albrightson was born Dec. 13, 1935, in New Richmond, Wis., and passed away Oct. 28, 2024, in McMinnville, Oregon. She was the middle child of Paul and Bernice Albrightson, with older sister Diane and younger brother Jon.
Sonya earned an elementary education credential from St. Olaf College, where she sang alto in the concert choir, followed by a secondary education degree from the University of Minnesota. She married Edward “Ted” Smith in 1957 and they welcomed daughter Sarah in 1958 after moving to Oakland, Calif., where Sonya taught at Redwood Heights Elementary for 10 years. Sonya and Ted divorced in 1967.
Sonya married Don Fouts and they moved to North Tahoe in 1968, initially to Agate Bay and later to Dollar Point. She taught at Tahoe Lake Elementary and North Tahoe Intermediate for almost three decades. Their son Robert joined the family in 1972.
She loved teaching and her students, including the sons of jazz great Dave Brubeck in Oakland, who were placed in her class for her singing, piano and music education skills, and Olympic medalist Julia Mancuso at NTI. Sonya and Don divorced in the late 1970s. She moved to Portland in the mid-1990s upon her retirement, joining Sarah and Robert.
Sonya was small, quick-witted, optimistic, curious and energetic, if sometimes impatient when she didn’t agree with your ideas or find them sufficiently interesting. She loved reading, nature, art, playing piano, biking and tennis. She and her friend Dottie Kuraisa of Heavenly Valley won the women’s doubles championship at the Incline Racquet Club in 1973 and Sonya was invited to play a doubles match at the club with her idol, Billie Jean King (“She made me play the net!”).
Her cycling adventures included covering Southern China for two weeks as a member of the second group of Americans allowed into the country for a bike tour in the early 1980s; riding from Vancouver, B.C., to San Francisco with teenage Robert and a Backroads group; and touring the Japanese Alps. She also hiked across Northern Britain from sea to sea.
In Portland, she was a longtime volunteer at the public library’s Title Wave used bookstore, the Japanese Garden, and the Portland Rose Garden. She sang with a traveling senior choir based out of Meier and Frank department store. She loved dogs and continued walking her little terrier Soby daily on the beautiful paths of Hillside Retirement Community in McMinnville until experiencing a major heart attack and the increasing effects of interstitial lung disease this summer.
She is survived by daughter Sarah Smith of Camp Sherman, Oregon; son Robert Fouts of Salem (wife Laura, daughters Cynthia and Natalie); and beloved siblings Diane Thompson (husband Jack) of Aberdeen, S.D.; and Jon Albrightson (wife Jean) of Minneapolis.
Remembrances in her memory may be made to a local animal rescue or the World Wildlife Fund.