Deceased Classmate: Tombari, Donna (1968)
Date Of Birth: 7-3-1950
Date Deceased: 5-26-2009
Age at Death: 58
Cause of Death: Cancer
Classmate City: Spokane
Classmate State: WA
Classmate Country: USA
Survived By: Donna is survived by her Mother, Dorothy Tombari, her Brother and Sister-in-law James and Sheri Tombari, her Husband Philip Salgado, her daughter Susan Salgado, all of Spokane, WA; her son, Gordon Salgado of Silver Spring, Maryland; by her Aunt Georgia Tombari, and numerous Cousins of the extended Tombari family of Spokane.

SALGADO, Donna Slipped peacefully into sleep, and then into rest, shortly after midnight on Tuesday, May 26, 2009. She was 58 years old, and is sorely missed by all who were close to her. She was born Donna Lee Tombari on July 3, 1950 in Spokane. Donna was educated in Spokane Public Schools and graduated from Ferris High School in June 1968. She attended Washington State University from 1968 to 1973, taking several months away from school to live with her brother- then an Army officer- in Europe. Donna remembered this time of her life with special fondness for the bond between her and her brother, and for their experiences skiing the mountains of Europe together. Donna graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English, with a teaching certificate, in June of 1973 and was hired as an English teacher at Kamiakin High School in Kennewick, WA soon afterward. She taught English Composition, Literature, Communications, and served as Faculty Advisor to the Tomatalk, the student newspaper. She met and married her husband, Philip Salgado, in the Tri-Cities and, following their wedding in December 1977, moved to join him in Portland, Oregon in January of 1978. She found employment as a substitute teacher and then as a faculty member at the Pan Terra Alternative School in Vancouver, WA from the spring of 1978 until she resigned in the spring of 1981 to give birth to her son, Gordon, in April 1981. Her daughter, Susan, was born to her in Richland, WA in September of 1986. The Salgado family moved to Spokane in the summer of 1987 and settled at their current address on 49th Avenue in January of 1988. Though she was an accomplished cook and seamstress, and made an excellent home, Donna was by no means a "homebody". She served as a nursery volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Portland, OR, and was ordained as a Deacon of that congregation from 1983 to 1986. She served as the Elder in charge of Children's Ministries at Manito Presbyterian Church from 1991 to 1994 and taught Sunday school at Manito and at Southside Christian Church for many years. She ran the nursery for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) at Manito for 3 years, co-led prayer retreats with Pastor Galen Doughty for 10 years, ending in 2007, and taught in Vacation Bible School in the Manito and Southside Christian Church congregations, also for 10 years. She volunteered at Hamblen Elementary School, where her children attended, from 1991 to 1998, and was employed at Hamblen as a Noon Aide and Overload Aide from 1994 to 2000. She also tutored individual students in reading skills at other District 81 elementary schools. Upon the death of her father, Henry Tombari, in March 2005 she took on the task of reorganizing and data-entering his business records into a standard computerized bookkeeping system, a job that occupied much of her time until the summer of 2007. The appearance of her daughter Susan in a Spokane Children's Theater (SCT) production of "The Pale Pink Dragon" in 1996 began her involvement with SCT, an organization she adored for the wholesomeness of its productions and the conduct of and example set by SCT adults backstage. Donna volunteered backstage, furnished transportation, hosted cast parties, raised funds, sewed costumes, and began serving on the SCT board in 1999, becoming its President in 2001. On her watch, the SCT production of Pinocchio won local, state, and regional theater competitions and was sent to Harrisburg, PA to represent the Pacific Northwest at the American Association of Community Theater's Biannual Convention in June of 2001. Donna went with them to the event. The production received national recognition for its choreography. Donna was herself no stranger to the stage, appearing in several Ham on Regal casts between the time her son entered Ferris High School in 1996 and her daughter graduated in 2005. Donna accepted Jesus Christ into her heart at a Young Life Club meeting in her High School years, and it is the quality of this relationship that informed her interactions with family, friends, and institutions, and especially with her children, whom she loved sacrificially. She shared Christ with her children as well as countless other Sunday school and VBS students, and she lived out her faith. When she contracted breast cancer in 1991 she prayed that she would be allowed to see her children grow to adulthood. This prayer was answered. When the cancer returned in 2005 she asked God how she should pray and heard that she should not pray for a cure, but instead pray for Grace. She did, and the answer to this prayer was the pouring of a full measure of Grace into her character. She shared that Grace with her visitors, friends, and family through the last years of a difficult illness.