Frances "Fran" Ann Tomlin Dudenhoeffer

Frances "Fran" Ann Tomlin Dudenhoeffer fought the valiant fight against numerous health conditions that developed in the spring of 2024 and into the summer to include, unbeknownst to her, cancer. She passed away peacefully on November 14, 2024. She was born on August 8, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas, as the only child of Arthur "Tommy" Tomlin and Annie Beatrice Everett Tomlin. She was proud of her pioneer heritage in both Arkansas and Texas.

She attended elementary, junior high and high school in San Antonio, graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in 1961, where she fell in love with Physical Education. She graduated from Southwest Texas State College (now Texas State University) in San Marcus, Texas, with a B.S. in Education. She attained her M.S. in Physical Education from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, North Carolina. She earned her Ph.D. in Physical Education from the University of Texas at Austin, Texas.

She was a member of a local women’s social organization on campus at Southwest Texas State where she was instrumental in converting it to the national sorority of Alpha Xi Delta as a founding member.

She was a member of Kappa Delta Pi, an honor society in Education for the top twenty percent of those in the field of Education. She traveled to university campuses to offer expertise in physical education programs for women throughout her working years and into retirement.

After she completed her education, she was an Assistant Professor of Physical Education and Women’s Recreation at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. She considered OU as “her school” and always rooted for OU against Texas and Nebraska, even though her doctorate was from UT.

While she was at OU, she met Art Dudenhoeffer, who was working on his Ph.D. in Physics. They were friends at first and then courted, marrying in Denton, Texas, on July 16, 1976. When they first married, they lived apart while Art was still working at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma, and she moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, to take a job as Director of Recreational (Intramural) Sports at New Mexico State University for 21 years. Being the Director of Intramurals was Fran’s dream job!

Art’s job as a physicist took him to Colorado Springs, Colorado, at Peterson Air Force Base in 1995. Again, they lived apart until Fran retired in 1997. She then joined him in the Springs.

Fran was a member of the Church of Christ since her youth. Even though her faith was strong, she was a feminist at heart. She was an active member of the Single on Sunday (SOS) group at the Eastside Church of Christ in Colorado Springs. Fran enjoyed many enduring friendships in the Alpha Xi Delta sorority alumni group where she held numerous leadership roles since 1999. She loved any kind of sports! Throughout her life, she enjoyed participating in softball, tennis, badminton, fencing, golf, shotput and her favorite later in life, pickleball. She qualified for and traveled to the National Senior Games for many years during her retirement.

She was preceded in death by her parents. She is survived by her husband, Art; her brother-in-law, Philip Dudenhoeffer; her niece, DeLynn Dudenhoeffer and her husband, W. Chris Osborne; her nephew, David Dudenhoeffer, and his girlfriend, Julie Coles, and numerous cousins on both sides of her family.

Memorial Service will be at 2:00PM, Saturday, November 23, 2024, at East Side Church of Christ located at 5905 Flintridge Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80918.