Plant High School Alumni
Tampa, Florida (FL)
Tracy Lee Steele Obituary
Tracy Lee Steele attended Plant High School in Tampa, FL. View the obituary, post a memory, or share a photo about Tracy Lee Steele.
| Graduation Year | Class of 1979 |
| Date of Passing | Feb 22, 2015 |
| About | Tracy Lee Steele, PhD, 54, Associate Professor of History at Sam Houston State University, passed away peacefully at her home in The Woodlands on February 22, 2015. She leaves behind the legacy of a brilliant mind illuminated by a life of letters and enriched by the experience of having lived among the people and cultures she studied. A devoted daughter and affectionate sister, Tracy was beloved as well by countless friends, colleagues, and students whose lives she touched. Tracy was born in San Angelo, Texas, on January 13, 1961, to Halcyon McCollem Steele and Neil Frederick Steele. A 1979 graduate of Henry B. Plant High School in Tampa, Florida, she gained admittance into the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1983. In 1991, she earned her PhD from the London School of Economics. Tracy spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, which enabled her post-doctorate study at the National Taiwan University in Taipei. Afterward she accepted a visiting professorship at Jiangsu Technical Teachers University in the People’s Republic of China. She then joined the faculty of the Lahore College of Arts & Sciences at Lahore, Pakistan, and returned to LSE as a teaching assistant. In 1992, Sam Houston State University invited Tracy to join the faculty as assistant professor of history. It was at “Sam” where Tracy found her academic home and enjoyed a productive 23-year career. The author of more than 25 articles that appeared in journals and edited book collections in the fields of American, Asian, and World history and diplomacy, her research sojourns took Tracy to archives and libraries on three continents. She presented her work at conferences ranging from Oxford, U.K. to Avignon, France and Athens, Greece, and from Hawaii to Hong Kong and Beijing. Tracy was perhaps known best as a popular and proficient classroom professor at Sam who taught Asian studies and diplomatic history. Typical of her evaluations, one student wrote: “Dr. Steele knows her history and enjoys it. Simply put—she’s amazing!” Tracy also earned the reputation as a warm and supportive colleague who spoke her mind frankly and without guile. Her sincerity and confidence endeared Tracy to her history department family and won her the respect of colleagues campus-wide. They rewarded her with regular appointments to the Faculty Senate, including a term as president. From that post she became the voice of her fellow professors in expressing their collective interests to the university administration. As a child, Tracy took lessons at the Florida Academy of Ballet, which cultivated a lifelong fondness for music and dance. Her other enduring passion was a love for animals, which involved her in the rescue and adoption of lost and abandoned dogs and cats. Tracy was preceded in death by her father, Neil, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and is survived by her mother, Halcyon; a sister, Julie Mainor and brother-in-law, Jim; brother Paul Steele and sister-in-law Maria; brother Andrew Steele and sister-in-law Kim as well as ten nieces and nephews. A memorial for Tracy is set for 3pm, Saturday, February 28, at Austin Hall on the campus of Sam Houston State University. A ceremony will be held at 2:00 on March 8, in Tonica, Illinois at the Tonica Methodist Church and burial will follow at Wenona, Illinois, where she will be interred in the McCollem family cemetery. |
Douglas Vance Karup '79 said:
RIP.
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