Local educator, youth advocate Dorothy DeShields loses battle to breast cancer

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Wednesday, Educator Dorothy DeShields lost her 10-year battle to breast cancer.

DeShields was a retired two-term member of the New Hanover County Board of Education, and a retired New Hanover County School System administrator.

She was also a former part-time instructor at UNCW.

“UNCW had the good fortune of hiring her to teach in the school of education to teach teachers how to teach,” her good friend Linda Pearce Thomas stated.

She added that DeShields took her job extremely seriously as she advocated for youth.

“All children in the school system… and she could be depended on. She was quiet, stately, and when she spoke everybody knew there was something in it that was worth listening to. She pulled no punches. She was a little lady, but she was a tough cookie,” Thomas said.

DeShields was also a principal at Gregory School of Science, Mathematics, and Technology in Wilmington where she and her staff focused their attention on a highly effective award-winning magnet program.

“The year that they were going to start the Gregory School of Science, Mathematics, and Technology, they let her know for sure two months before it was to open,” Thomas said. “She had about that amount of time to learn herself how to do it and to train her staff to be prepared. She always said they thought she wouldn’t be able to do it, but she did do it.”

DeShields also served the community through a number of other organizations.

She was an active member of the NAACP, the Alpha Psi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, and an Alumnae member of the Wilmington, NC Chapter of the Links, Incorporated, and more.

Thomas said funeral arrangements are pending.