Sherry P. Palmer

Sherry Parks Palmer, 85, of Lexington, South Carolina, passed away November 21, 2021, in Lexington, South Carolina.Sherry was born on June 17, 1936, in Cleveland, Tennessee, to the late Archie LuVern Parks and Nora Kathryn Wright Parks. Sherry and her late husband, Reverend Ronald W. Palmer, were longtime members of Riverland Hills Baptist Church. Sherry and Ronald were married on June 6, 1959, at First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and upon Ronald’s death in January of this year, had enjoyed sixty-one years of life together. From 1959 to 1984, Sherry shared in Ronald’s ministry at First Baptist Church, Charleston, Indiana; First Baptist Church, Lebanon, Kentucky; West End Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama; Southside Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama; First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Florida; and Cedar Hills Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. They moved to Columbia, South Carolina, in 1984, when Ronald became Director of the Sunday School Department of the South Carolina Southern Baptist Convention. Throughout her life, Sherry was active in the Southern Baptist Women’s Missionary Union, serving as an instructor in English-as-a-second-language and cooking classes. After spending the summer of 1980 training in the Orton Gillingham method at The DePaul School in Louisville, Kentucky, Sherry, along with other parents of dyslexic children in Jacksonville, Florida, founded what would later become the DePaul School of Northeast Florida, working as a volunteer instructor and administrator. In the early 1980s, Sherry twice traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on mission trips with the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Sherry and Ronald were generous supporters of Camp Adam Fisher, a South Carolina non-profit organization that hosts an annual, week-long camp for children with Type 1 diabetes. Sherry’s survivors include daughter, Beverly Humphrey (David) of Newport, North Carolina; sons, Walter Whelan Palmer (Cristina) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Philip LuVern Palmer (Annette) of Camden, South Carolina; sister, Kathryn Wilke of Dayton, Tennessee; grandchildren Justin Page, Caleb Deppe, Austin Palmer, Heather Palmer, Alexis Smith, Parker Palmer, Shiloh Humphrey, Emelie Humphrey, Flavia Alessandra Pinheiro, and Alexandre Junior Pinheiro.She was preceded in death, by her parents, husband, and older sister, Betty Elrod. A memorial service will be held at the Bush River Memorial Gardens, 5400 Bush River Road, Columbia, on Monday, November 29, 2021, at 3:00 p.m.Reverend Bill Haselden will officiate. The family requests that memorial donations be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (www.jdrf.org).