JoAnne Gallagher Mitchell

JoAnne joined DoDDS in 1967 and retired in 1997. She worked as an elementary teacher, a reading improvement specialist, and a secondary drama instructor. Her assignments were in Turkey, England, Okinawa, Germany and, for the last 17 years of her DoDDS career, in Panama.

Theater was JoAnne’s passion both as a performer and as director. She was often given awards for both. She was certified as a Theater Director through courses taken at Yale University Drama School and, in recent years, directed shows as the Henegar Center for the Arts in Florida. Just prior to her death, she directed shows at the Vicenza Army Base in Italy where her husband Jerry Brees is assigned as Entertainment Director. Together JoAnne and Jerry produced, directed, staged, choreographed and designed well over 200 shows in their life and theater partnership.

To know JoAnne was to love her. She leaves a void in the theater world and in the lives of many. She will be greatly missed.