Former Bayfield and Durango resident Irma Winona (Steele) Snooks died Friday, Feb. 10, 2012, in Bullhead City, Ariz. She was two weeks shy of her 90th birthday. She was a fifth-generation native of Colorado.

Mrs. Snooks was born to Earl Glenn and Corinne Morgan Steele on Feb. 24, 1922, in Bayfield. Her parents, uncles and grandparents moved there in 1920 from Pueblo County, purchasing a ranch at Wallace Gulch.

Mrs. Snooks attended Moss School and Bayfield High School. She was known as a “scrappy” guard for the girls’ basketball team, her family said, and was class valedictorian in 1939.

Immediately after graduation, she began dating classmate Otis Henry Snooks Jr. On Dec. 4, 1943, the couple married in Aztec.

The Snooks raised their children on Riverview Drive in Durango. While Mr. Snooks ran the Conoco wholesale distributorship, Mrs. Snooks managed the Durango Service Station across the street from the Strater Hotel.

She was a member of the League of Women Voters and Beta Sigma Phi, serving a term as president. The Snooks also were members of a group of friends who called themselves “The Potlickers.”

In 1968, the Snooks moved to Farmington, where they co-owned Snooks Oil Co., Inc. Mrs. Snooks continued her involvement in Beta Sigma Phi.

In 1997, they moved full-time to Bullhead City, where Mrs. Snooks served on the board of directors of their community’s home owner’s association.

She liked to travel, sew, bake desserts and play video poker in Laughlin, Nev. Her family said she was a stalwart Democrat and enjoyed arguing politics with her equally stalwart Republican husband.

Mrs. Snooks was preceded in death by her infant twin sons.

She is survived by her husband of 68 years, Otis Henry Snooks Jr.; children Howard Snooks of Boulder, Marjorie Lackey of Bullhead City and Shirley Snooks of San Antonio; brothers Stanley Steele of Bayfield and Gordon Steele of Reno, Nev.; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be held from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, 2012, at Hood Mortuary, 1261 East Third Ave., in Durango. A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, 2012, also at Hood. Immediately afterward, burial will be held at Pine River Cemetery in Bayfield, next to her twin sons and her and her husband’s families.

Memorial contributions may be sent to the Lavenia McCoy Public Library, 395 Bayfield Center Drive, Bayfield, CO 81122.