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. Juanita McNish Juanita passed away Feb. 20, 2009 at Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo. She had been suffering from symptoms brought on by neurological degeneration, which had begun in late November. It was a perplexing decline which never robbed her of her lucidity or her desire to recover. She died in the company of her husband, daughter, and son. The only child of Belgian immigrant parents, Juanita DeRoye was born in Los Angeles on Feb. 27, 1932. She attended Catholic parochial schools and graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1953 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. She and Richard McNish married on Oct. 10, 1953, and lived in Los Angeles area until the moved to Ventura County in 1968. From high school on she was an artist, ultimately arriving at an accomplished abstract style that used subtle gradations of color on large canvases. Many friends have her paintings hung in there homes. The way it would work was; she would ask them the color of their couch and carpet rummage through the 50 or 60 canvases stacked around the house and pull out a couple of works whose colors she thought would complement their decor. She was active in promoting the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard and was a founding board member of the Carnegie Art Museum Cornerstone, a nonprofit group which raises money for the museum. Juanita also had a natural bent for finance and organization. At the time of her death, she served as the treasurer for the Carnegie Art Museum Cornerstone Board for 16 years. She served on the Marina Management Committee for the Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club. She successfully oversaw her family's investments. For 30 years, she helped her husband, Richard, organize what is now known as the McNish Classic Yacht Race on behalf of Pacific Corinthian Yacht Club. She served on the Ventura County Grand Jury. She was an avid gardener, specializing in cymbidium orchids; preferred cats to dogs; loved sea food; redecorated rooms of her home regularly and to good effect; and had an ironic sense of humor and of life. Her family knows she will be remembered as an intelligent, elegant, gracious and tolerant woman who enthusiastically loved her grandchildren and supported her family in their adventures. She is survived by her husband, Richard McNish; daughter, Leslie; son, Jeff; and granddaughters, Alyce, Darby, Ramona and Nora. A memorial in her honor will be held at 6 p.m., March 20, at the Carnegie Art Museum, 424 South C St., Oxnard. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Carnegie Art Museum... |