KAREN BREWER Obituary

Karen Heater Brewer CHARLESTON - A gathering to celebrate the life of Karen Heater Brewer will be held on Saturday, May 4, 2019, at 11:30 AM at the picnic shelter at the Home House of the Society of the High Hills of Santee, at the end of Acton Road, Sumter. Officiating will be Rev. James Grubb, Minister of Assimilation and Discipleship at Shandon United Methodist Church in Columbia. Following a brief eulogy, her family invites you to enjoy a barbecue lunch. Dress is casual. Directions can be found online at www.bullock-funeralhome.com, or follow the brown historical monument signs to the General Thomas Sumter Memorial Park from Highway 441 or 261 off of Highway 378 west of Sumter; the shelter is in a fenced enclosure adjacent to the park gate. Karen was 56 years old when she passed away on Wednesday, December 26, 2018, at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston after a brief illness. She was born on November 7, 1962, at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida, the daughter of Ruth Blaylock Heater and the late James Langdon Heater. She lived with her military family in Tampa; Sumter, South Carolina; Goldsboro, North Carolina; Aviano/Budoia, Italy; and Sumter, South Carolina again before moving to Charleston after college. She was a 1981 graduate of Sumter High School and earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of South Carolina in 1985. Karen retired from SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic (Charleston) in 2015, where she had worked for more than 30 years. She was named Employee of the Year three times during her tenure there, both as an individual and as part of a group award, and was recognized numerous times for volunteerism. She was an animal lover who always had a houseful of pets, her latest being dogs, Ava and Ziva, and cats, Lucy and Sugar. Karen is survived by her mother and companion, Ruth Heater and Tom Dennis (TD), of Sumter and Horatio; her brother, Kenneth James Heater and his wife, Lois, of Delaware, Ohio; a nephew, John Clifford Heater; an aunt, Shirley Blaylock Davis of Kannapolis, North Carolina; and several cousins in North Carolina, Washington and California. Memorials may be made to Charleston Animal Society, 2455 Remount Road, North Charleston, South Carolina 29406 or www.charlestonanimalsociety.org. You may go to www.bullock-funeralhome.com and sign the family's guest book. The family has chosen Bullock Funeral Home for the arrangements. Visit our guestbook at www.legacy.com/obituaries/ charleston