FLORA SUE NOE COSSON, 86, died peacefully in her sleep of natural causes in the early morning of Wednesday, May 25, one day short of her eighty-seventh birthday. She was a longtime member of First United Methodist Church, as well as previously a devoted member of Grace Baptist Church, Central Baptist Church, and Holt’s Baptist Church, where her grandparents, James and Laura Marsh Noe, were two of the founders. She was an active member in all choirs of all churches to which she belonged, as well as a member of Women’s Missionary Union, and was especially proud of her service as a longtime Sunday School teacher at Central Baptist Church and Grace Baptist Church. While at First United Methodist she also enjoyed participating in Angel Food Ministries. She was a 1947 graduate of Morristown High School, where she excelled as captain of her basketball team, and she retired in 1982 as group manager from BellSouth after thirty years of service to AT&T in Morristown and later, Knoxville. Prior to her service at the “phone company,” she was employed by Morristown Knitting Mills. Following her retirement from BellSouth she remained very active in the BellSouth retiree community, working for many years with, and for, the BellSouth Pioneers, and was a contributor to the highly successful Dining With Pioneers cookbook series. Additionally in retirement she enjoyed working part-time in customer service at the College Square Mall, and for many years worked as a poll worker for the Hamblen County Board of Elections. Additionally, she was a participant and sometime judge for the Hamblen County 4-H Club, Future Homemakers of America, Home Demonstration Club, and UT Extension (where she was particularly proud of winning the “hog calling” contest in the year in which she was encouraged to enter). Later in her life she particularly enjoyed traveling-having journeyed to forty-nine states (the only exception being Alaska), hiking (having climbed Mount Le Conte, among most major Smoky Mountain peaks, when she was well into in her ‘60s), attending monthly “Golden Girls” lunches with her many friends from Morristown High School, and hosting her annual Christmas Eve family dinner, usually with over forty attendees. She was preceded in death by her husband, James Lynn “Zeke” Cosson, to whom she was married for fifty years; her parents, Richard W. Noe and Aretha E. Cowan Noe; and sister, Juanita N. Inman. She is survived by her daughter, Patricia Lynn Cosson Henderson and husband, Richard M. “Mike” Henderson Sr., of Jefferson City; and her daughter Susan Cosson, with whom she lived; grandsons, Benjamin Ashley Hodges, Esq., of Brooklyn, New York; and Richard M. “Richie” Henderson Jr., and wife, Jennifer, of Blaine; sisters and brothers-in-law, Bett and Jimmy Lynn Trent; and Barbara and W.C. Martin, all of Morristown; and brothers and sisters-in-law, Ronald W. and Linda Noe of Morristown; Arlen “Shot” Noe, of Bybee; and Willis Edward and Sharon Noe, of Bean Station; and sister-in-law Elizabeth "Betty" and Jim Akins of Morristown; special and devoted cousin Robert D. “Bobby” Davis, of Morristown; and many, many, nephews and nieces near and far, whom she treasured dearly, as she did her close and extended family of friends and neighbors-all of whom she welcomed with her unforgettable smile and positive disposition that will forever be her legacy to all who knew her. Her family will receive friends on Friday, May 27, from 5-7:00p.m. at West Side Chapel, with funeral services to follow immediately with Reverend Chuck Starks officiating. Graveside ceremony will be on Saturday, May 28, at 11:00a.m. at Emma Jarnagin Cemetery. Arrangements by Westside Chapel Funeral Home in Morristown.

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