Sheila Karen Crofut

passed away Wednesday, December 7, 2016 at Auburn Multi Care Medical Center in Auburn, Washington. She was born on October 3, 1931 and was 85 years of age.Sheila was born the oldest of four children to Edward Francis Crofut III and Gertrude Orlove Crofut. She was born in New York City. Sheila attended elementary and high school in Northern Virginia. She enjoyed starting her days at school singing in the gymnasium where the children gathered before class. In high school she was a member of the debate team. After high school graduation, Sheila attended a junior college in Chicago.Her father was working for television in Chicago at the time. He then took a job in California and Sheila moved also and began attending college in San Mateo. Sheila wanted to teach English and loved performing in the theater and writing poetry. Her degree was in English and Theater. She received a Fellowship with the Guthrie Theater and went on tour.She lived in New York and then joined friends from college days who started a theater in California and was involved with the South Coast Repertory Theater. Sheila taught school in California and also in Paris while stay with her father during the last years of his life. After her father's death, Sheila returned to the United States to finish a Master's degree in theater, and later in Social Work with a focus on Community and Organizational Development and Legislative Action and Analysis. Sheila continued to be involved in theater as an actress and a producer until she and her husband moved to the Pacific Northwest.Sheila was able to do an internship with the King County Council Human Services Committee. She discovered her experience on the King County Committee for Human Services was useful and started a similar committee for Bainbridge Island. She then moved to Bainbridge Island where she served on the city council. Before being elected to the City Council, she founded a project called "Friends of the Ravine" when her son Tim discovered Coho Salmon and Cutthroat trout while playing with a friend in a ravine near their home. Sheila obtained a Salmon Centennial Grant from Washington State Department of Fisheries to re-stock the stream with chum fry and Coho eggs in cooperation with Suquamish Tribal Fisheries. Sheila has also been involved in Affordable Housing and Ministry of Environment projects.She as two children, Tim and his wife and daughter live in Poulsbo and was preceded in death by her developmentally disabled daughter, Karen. Family and friends are respectfully invited to attend the Memorial Mass on Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 10:30 AM at St. Cecilia Catholic Church on Bainbridge Island. Private interment will take place at Port Madison Cemetery on Bainbridge Island. Arrangements entrusted to Cook Family Funeral Home.