Donald B. Mayo

With a smile on his face and a song in his heart, Don­ald B. Mayo, 90, Hori­con passed away on Feb­ru­ary 18, 2024, with fam­ily at his side.
Don­ald was born Feb­ru­ary 10, 1934, in West Bend, to Cur­tis and Marie (Jaeger) Mayo. He joined brother, Denis, and later wel­comed sis­ter, Kay (Let­ten­berger) to the fam­ily. He was an ac­tive West Bend com­mu­nity mem­ber and an avid four-sport ath­lete in high school. He orig­i­nally at­tended col­lege on an ath­letic schol­ar­ship, then earned his un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree and be­came a proud alum­nus of Mar­quette Uni­ver­sity. Later he at­tended and earned a grad­u­ate de­gree and com­pleted course­work for his dis­ser­ta­tion in Ed­u­ca­tion and Lead­er­ship Pol­icy at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son.
On June 16, 1956, he mar­ried Janet K. Roberts, who had been his sweet­heart since eighth grade, be­gin­ning the next phase of his life. Don­ald and Janet raised five chil­dren, An­drea Macheel (Steve), Melissa (Mar­vin Hansen), Melanie Gre­gory (James), Don­ald Jr/m “D.J.” (Chanz Be­lotin­dos) and Patrick (Mindy Bran­den­stein). He was for­tu­nate and thrilled to have 11 grand­chil­dren and 12 great-grand­chil­dren, and to call Ro­tary Ex­change stu­dents, Ernesto Echev­erri and Ok­sana Pouga, his bonus chil­dren.
Don­ald was a pas­sion­ate ed­u­ca­tor with a ca­reer that spanned more than 40 years in pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion as a teacher, coach, and school ad­min­is­tra­tor in Wilton, Janesville, Mar­shall, and Hori­con, re­tir­ing as Dis­trict Ad­min­is­tra­tor of Hori­con School Dis­trict.
Don­ald was also a life­time Ro­tar­ian and was com­mit­ted to its mis­sion of ser­vice to oth­ers. He filled many lead­er­ship roles at local, dis­trict and in­ter­na­tional lev­els. He found his great­est re­ward in the youth ex­change pro­gram, where he com­bined his ad­vo­cacy for youth and com­mit­ment to mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism by help­ing young peo­ple see the world through the in­bound and out­bound stu­dent ex­change pro­grams sup­port­ing ed­u­ca­tional travel for thou­sands of stu­dents.
Don­ald loved mak­ing peo­ple laugh, lead­ing most con­ver­sa­tions with a joke or pun and tak­ing ad­van­tage of a good Yogi Berra quote. He en­joyed a good brandy Man­hat­tan, and play­ing golf, bridge and rac­quet­ball and al­ways kept a close eye on the Bucks, Pack­ers, Brew­ers, and Golden Ea­gles. But his fa­vorite pas­time was at­tend­ing the many sport­ing and mu­si­cal ac­tiv­i­ties of his fam­ily mem­bers.
A Mass of Chris­t­ian Bur­ial will take place on Mon­day, Feb. 26, at 11 a.m. at Sa­cred Heart Parish in Hori­con with the Rev. Fr. Justin Lop­ina pre­sid­ing. A vis­i­ta­tion will be held on Sun­day, Feb. 25, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Koepsell Fu­neral Home in Hori­con and again on Mon­day, Feb. 26, from 10 a.m. until the time of the Mass at 11 a.m. In­ter­ment will take place at St. Malachy Ceme­tery in Hori­con.
Re­mem­ber when you come to a fork in the road, take it. Also, no mat­ter where you go, there you are (Yogi Berra).
Memo­ri­als may be di­rected to the Marsh­men Foun­da­tion. Marsh­men Foun­da­tion – Fond du Lac Area Foun­da­tion (fd­lareafoun­da­tion.com) or the char­ity of your choice in mem­ory of Don­ald.
Koepsell Fu­neral Home in Hori­con is serv­ing the fam­ily. www.​KoepsellFH.​com