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Debbie Thayer, longtime director of the Morristown Senior Citizens Center, died suddenly Sunday, July 16.

Thayer spent 18 and a half years at the Senior Citizens Center before retiring in 2020.

A Morristown native, she left the area for about 20 years in her early adulthood. She was a medical social worker in Middle Tennessee for 13 years before finding her way back home to the Senior Center.

“We have certainly lost a bright light in our town, our community,” said Valerie Farmer who followed Thayer as director of the Senior Center. “She was truly a special person. She devoted her life to helping others. She touched countless lives in the time she was there.

Gary Matthews, Executive Director of the United Way of Hamblen County, said Thayer made such an impact, the Senior Center named a wing of the building after her.

“She was a special friend and just heart and soul of the Senior Citizens Center,” he said. “Those seniors were her life besides her family. She thought the world of every one of those seniors. She will be really missed with everything she has accomplished and the lives she touched”

Mathews enjoyed more than just a working relationship with Thayer and the Center. She recruited him a decade ago when the Center wanted to field a team in a state-wide trivia contest.

“She approached me 10 years ago to get a group together in state brain games,” he said. “We got to go to state for five straight years.”

Farmer said that as someone who worked for the betterment of others all her life, Thayer continued that mission even in retirement.

“Even after retirement, she took on the role of helping the seniors there at First Baptist Church, she never met a stranger, always friendly,” she said.

Matthews and Farmer agreed the community benefitted greatly from the work she did and the resources she gathered over the year, but both said her friendship was even more valuable.

“We’ve lost a great community member but also a great friend,” Farmer said. “I met her when I was with Regency and started going to the Senior Center for marketing purposes, over the years, we became very good friends.

“I’m following in some pretty big footsteps and I’m honored to follow in that path. We’re gonna miss her smile and her life and her spirit.”

Funeral arrangements had not been announced by press time.