Sharlene Weight

Sharlene Weight, our sister, teacher, coach, aunt, and friend passed away Thursday morning, November 20, 2025, at home after ten months of an aggressive uterine cancer diagnosis (carcinosarcoma). After surgery and 18 weeks of chemotherapy, the cancer had grown back and no further action could be taken but to give her comfort care.

Sharlene was born August 5, 1958 in Payson, Utah to DeVere Robert Weight and Jean Hansen Weight. Shar had the great opportunity to be a farmer's daughter. Her family lived on various Utah county farms and one year in Antioch, IL for her first 13 years. Her favorite dairy farm was in Leland, Spanish Fork, UT where she learned hard work from her dad, and compassion and love for all animals from her mom. Her farm days were filled with riding horses, raising lambs, hauling hay, milking cows and being chased by roosters. She couldn't have had a better childhood. One of her very favorite spots growing up was at the Weight ranch where she could climb Nellie's mountain, deer hunt with her dad and brother and other relatives, and sleep in the old homestead cabin.

At age 14, the family moved to Farmington, UT. It was a turning point in her life. It was a sad day when the family had to move from Leland to Farmington, which, at the time, seemed to be thought the worst thing that could happen to her, and it turned out to be the best. Shar was a tomboy and moving to Farmington opened a world of opportunities for her to play sports. Shar loved playing softball and volleyball in the Church's Mutual program for young men and women. With the passing of Title IX legislation, she was able to play in high school and be coached at Davis High by Norma Carr and the late Mary Ann Esplin Petersen. Shar participated in softball, volleyball, tennis, basketball and track and field; she and her incredible teammates at Davis High, took home five state championships and two runners-up during her four years there. In track and field, Shar took first place for the javelin and shot put her junior year, and her senior year she broke the state records in both javelin and shot put, as well as the discus event. These accomplishments earned her a track and field scholarship to the University of Utah, where she qualified for nationals in the javelin her freshman year. In 2022, she was inducted into the Davis High School Track and Field Hall of Fame.

After three years of college, Shar felt inspired to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and accepted a call to serve in the Rapid City South Dakota Mission. While her mission was a difficult one, her testimony grew and was strengthened. Shar had the opportunity to take her guitar with her, and had many opportunities to sing songs, always focused on the gospel of Jesus Christ, to Church members and investigators, on and off the reservation. While in the Mission Training Center in 1979, she crossed paths with someone who would be her best friend for life.

Her mission prepared her for many leadership callings in the Church, her favorite being Young Women's camp director. Her fun songs (can you say, The Fat Came Back?) around the campfire were legendary; that, and camp testimonies around the fire, affected and changed the lives of hundreds of young women in Farmington. She served as ward young women's president (twice), ward Relief Society president, gospel doctrine teacher, Relief Society teacher, and stake young women's president. She served a mission for two years as an institute teacher in the Church's Pathways program until she got her cancer diagnosis. Her last calling was as ward choir director; she had never turned down a calling in her life, but this one prompted deep prayer before accepting. She felt blessed when she accepted and, by all accounts, did a wonderful job. Shar was a humble but faithful servant in any calling, but she had a gift to teach. She touched so many lives; if you heard her teach, you remembered it. She was happiest when she served others and taught the gospel, and surely she's already got an assignment up there! There's no other reason for her passing away at age 67, other than they needed her gift to teach thousands on the other side.

After graduation with a bachelor's degree in physical education, English and reading, from the University of Utah in 1983, she was hired to coach at North Layton Junior High, where she taught reading, English and physical education.

She also coached their volleyball, basketball and track and field teams. She then had the good fortune to be highly encouraged (by the powers that be) to move to Layton High, where she taught English, creative writing and health. Shar taught there for ten years, and after receiving her masters' degree from Utah State University in psychology, she was a guidance counselor there for ten more. In 2000, she was inducted into the Davis School District Hall of Fame as a counselor. During those twenty years, she coached other sports but her focus was always on track and field. In 1990, her team won their first region 1 championship and she was voted 4A Track Coach of the Year, voted on by the other coaches. Her Layton High track team won another region 1 (5A) championship in 1995. She had numerous state champions on her team, and many who went on to continue their careers in college. Every year her seniors asked that they write a song for them at the end of season dinner. She started a darned precedent and the next two years of track; the seniors each begged her to write a song for them.

Many of her former athletes are coaches now and have become lifelong friends. She was a mentor to hundreds of students. She earned her Administrative Leadership certificate and moved to be an intern (vice principal) for two years at Orchard and Holbrook elementary schools. When she was ready, she interviewed to be an elementary school principal. One reason was that the sixth-grade boys often brought in a basketball at lunch and asked if she would come out and play basketball with them. She got the job. She was the principal of Reading Elementary in Centerville for seven years until she retired. She loved teaching, and she loved the youth.

Shar and her best friend Jennifer traveled around the world together in their forty-four years of being best friends. Europe, Norway, British Isles, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean Canada and Alaska. Not to mention the dozens of trips spent at Jennifer's house in St George and Shar's 5th wheel and pad at the Star Valley RV Resort in Wyoming. She and Jennifer went to baseball games in dozens of stadiums and went to the 1999 World Series in Atlanta. They also attended NFL games in Green Bay and San Francisco; the last thing on her bucket list was to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game at Arrowhead. She was able to make the trip on October 27th, with Jennifer and Shar's brother and sister, to see the Chiefs beat the Washington Commanders 28-7. That only came to pass because of the prayers of dozens and dozens of people that she'd make it to the game. The last two years of her life, largely because of Caitlin Clark, she became a huge WNBA fan and a passionate fan of Indiana Fever. Time ran out before they could see her play in person.

In 2004 she was hanging a new record board in the gym when the ladder collapsed beneath her. She shattered her ankle, broke the heel of her other foot and broke her tail bone. It was a blessing there were boys in the gym playing basketball when she fell, and she got help immediately. After being two months in a wheelchair, 20+ pins and eight surgeries later, she limped the rest of her life but didn't let it get the best of her. The only time she had real troubles with her fused ankle was when she went for a pedicure and they kept trying to bend her fused foot...

Six months after her retirement, she thought she was getting a cold because her nose was always getting stuffed up and it was so painful. After four months and an MRI, CT scans, spinal tap and biopsy later, they finally made a diagnosis of an auto-immune disease called granulomatosis polyangiitis (GPA, or Wegener's disease). She learned to live with it, but it was brutal as a chronic illness for her. So many things she wanted to do after she retired and she wasn't able to do many of them, but she persevered.

Shar was an active advocate for her ancestors and had the work done in the temple for thousands of them. She felt a great responsibility to them, and she went more than the extra mile to research her family and find them. Surely she was met at the veil by all of them, anxiously awaiting her arrival to thank her!

So, as you can imagine, Shar was a gifted athlete her whole life and loved to play all sports. While in her 20s, she pitched and played softball in a Salt Lake rec league, where she won the league batting title one year with a batting average over .800. Later, she played in a Davis County league with her buddy Lori Salvo, and Lori's sisters (they won by about 20 runs every game, and sometimes even more!). She took up golf a little more seriously ten years ago, and yep, she got her first Hole-in-One on #2 at Bountiful Ridge in 2020. She loved fishing, camping, riding horses, and hunting, especially with her dad and family. She was a horsewoman all the way and an excellent shot! With the 50th anniversary of Title IX, Davis High invited all those '70s women athletes to be honored and recognized. As a result, she and many teammates made plans to meet once a month for lunch or dinner, or games. The "Davis gals" were such a huge part of the last few years of her life. She loved getting together and it was such a blessing to reconnect before and during her cancer treatment. (And she would entertain them with entries from her high school journal each time.) What wonderful friends they have become, and they loved and respected her deeply!

Last but not least, she loved every dog she owned. (She wouldn't go to a movie if it had a dog or horse getting hurt.) She adored her four goldens: Sadie, Charlie, Mayzie and Gidget. She was so touched that Gidget's new mom and dad, Casey and Nikki Mortensen, will be as wonderful to her and love her as much as Shar did. Shar was a wonderful dog momma for 40 years. She also was so blessed with the companionship of Zuzu, her tuxedo black cat, and has missed her so much this last year. (Wonder how Zuzu will feel about four golden retrievers as brother and sisters for eternity...)

She is survived by sisters: Nadine (Gary) Runchel and Kathy Young; brothers David (Janet) Weight and Robert Weight; nieces Colby Weight, Lexi Weight, Ronda Young, Donnell Madsen; nephews Rod Young, Reo Young, Shaun Weight, Jeffrey Scott Runchel. She was preceded in death by her parents, sister Janean Weight Boulter; niece Jeanie Lee Boulter; her brothers-in-law Phillip Young and Leonal Boulter; niece Amber Rachelle Young Turner and nephews Ren Lee Young, Ryan Lane Young, and Todd Gary Runchel.

A viewing will be held at the Farmington South Stake Center, 695 S 200 E, Farmington, Utah on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, from 6:00-8:00 P.M. with the  Funeral service on Wednesday, December 3, 2025 at 11:00 A.M. at the church. There will also be a viewing prior to the funeral services from 9:30-10:30am. 

Special thanks to Huntsman Home Hospice and Robert Weight for his tenderness and kindness in caring for Shar the last month of her life.