She died in her home with her husband by her side. Preceded by her mother and father Warren and Judy Varner, brother Roy Varner and mother-in-law Katherine Hibbs. She first married in Monte Vista to Gerald Bryning. They raised 4 children. She remarried Tom Hibbs in La Junta in 1971, and they added one more child to the family.
Survived by her husband Tom Hibbs and her 5 children - Sarah “Sallie Kay” Hibbs-Shipp (Tom), Jason Bryning-Hibbs (Kim), Rebeccah “Becky” Bryning-Castillo (Bob), Malcolm Bryning, and Deborah “Debbie” Bryning; 7 grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren; and two brothers still in Monte Vista - John Varner (Sandy) and Virgil Varner (Doris), and sister-in-law Elaine Varner (Roy) and her brothers’ families.
Sallie was a daughter, a mother, a teacher, a businesswoman, a builder, a community organizer, and a caretaker. When we met, she took me to Monte Vista to meet her mother and father who she adored. She stayed close to her brothers in Monte Vista throughout both her marriages.
Professionally, Sallie spent nearly 50 years being an educator. She began her teaching career in Las Animas, Colo., teaching high school English for 10 years, where she was awarded a seat on the Colorado Department of Education Help Mobile. She then created and directed an experimental individualized instruction Writing Lab at Otero Junior College in the early 1970s and became the International Student Advisor, beginning a lifetime of opening her house to international students. After leaving OJC, she taught English at Swink High School for 14 years, where she was recognized as Colorado English Teacher of the Year for innovative ways to keep students engaged and the use of everyday journalling. Her motto was “Learn to write by writing.”
After retiring from Swink High School, she founded the International Cultural Exchange, a private English-as-a-Second-Language school, and spent the next 10 years personally hosting, housing, teaching, and serving as the “international mother” for hundreds of international students of all ages from literally all over the world, many of whom lived with us. Sallie loved that role in her life. She has been so sad over the last 10 years or so about the substantial rise of people who preach an us-versus-them dogma, isolating others and harboring hate for people they don’t relate to and, in so many cases, don’t even know.
From the beginning of their marriage, Sallie was involved with Tom’s family in Kentucky. The kids spent time every summer visiting the farm, and the whole family alternated holidays, spending every other Christmas in Kentucky. In 2000, she designed and built a house on the farm to facilitate helping Tom’s mother, Kay Hibbs, and Kay’s sister, Blanche Erdman, live there as long as possible during their later years. She brought Bardstown musicians to Colorado, and she brought the Colorado Springs Children’s Choir to Bardstown. She cared for Tom’s mother as her health declined to a point where she could not live alone. In 2021, she decided she wanted to live on the Hibbs family farm full time.
