Virginia Sharp Bonitatibus, 92, youngest daughter of William H. and Sarah McKinney Sharp, was born April 22, 1916, at Coulstone. She died Sept. 9, 2008.
After graduation from Licking High School in 1933, she emulated her sister Hallie by teaching for a year at Lower Hepsoda School in Dent County before attending Chillicothe Business College.
Sept. 1, 1939, she started her career with Intercounty Electric Cooperative Association as the system’s first secretary/stenographer, where she worked for nearly 40 years. Her service was broken only when she was away with her husband during World War II, while he served in the U.S. Army. She saw the cooperative grow from a staff of nine to 70. At the beginning, she manually figured and hand wrote the first bills and helped set up the billing department.
She married David J. Bonitatibus March 11, 1943. When they returned to Licking after the war, they built the Triangle Service Station and Grocery with Virginia’s aunt, Arah Mitchell, which they operated until 1967. Mr. Bonitatibus continued as the concessionaire at Montauk State Park until his retirement in 1979.
Mrs. Bonitatibus loved to travel, and she and her husband made trips in their Winnebago across the country visiting their daughter and her family. They especially loved to winter in Yuma, Ariz. After her husband’s death, she traveled to Scotland, England and France with her daughter. When she was 78, she climbed the stairs to the top of the Tower of London.
She was a long-time member of the United Methodist Church of Licking.
Surviving are her daughter, Constance “Connie” Lea; two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Services were Sept. 13 at the United Methodist Church in Licking with Connie Bell officiating. Burial was in the Licking Cemetery under the direction of Fox Funeral Home.
