Elizabeth Nelick Profeta

Funeral services for Elizabeth “Betsy” Nelick Profeta, 61, North Port, Fla., will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Trinity Episcopal Church. Private interment will be in Stony Point Cemetery in southern Douglas County.
Ms. Profeta died Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010, at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
She was born Nov. 24, 1948, in Madison, Wis., the daughter of Franklyn C. and Elizabeth Mount Nelick. She was visiting Lawrence at the time of her death.
Ms. Profeta was a 1966 graduate of Lawrence High School and was the class valedictorian.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in English in 1970 from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. She received a master’s degree from the State College of New York in Buffalo. During her undergraduate years, she spent a semester at Oxford University in England.
Ms. Profeta began her career as a volunteer with VISTA in Liberia and with the Peace Corps in Afghanistan. She later worked overseas for several companies, teaching English as a second language in Africa, Iran, Italy and Saudi Arabia. She also was an educator at several regional institutions of higher education and for the state of Kansas. She recently taught English at Manatee College in Florida.
She married John Profeta. He survives, of Florida.
Other survivors include a son, Jamie Profeta, of the U.S. Virgin Islands; and two brothers, Tim Nelick, Memphis, Tenn., and Jamie and wife Lisa, rural Douglas County.
The family will meet friends following services at the church.
The family suggests memorials to the Lawrence Humane Society, sent in care of Warren-McElwain Mortuary, 120 W. 13th St., Lawrence, KS 66044.
Online condolences may be sent at warrenmcelwain.com.