Merry Leslie Edenton-Wooten, 70, of Pensacola, FL passed away Saturday, March 27, 2021.

Merry Leslie Edenton was born at Sacred Heart Hospital on May 5, 1950, where both her mother and Aunt Frances Davenport were nurses. She was the daughter of Walter Lee Edenton, an aircraft mechanic at Pensacola Naval Air Station, and Mary Catherine Edenton, who served as postmistress for Warrington during World War II. She attended Warrington Elementary and Middle Schools, and then graduated from Pensacola Christian Academy in 1968.

She attended Bob Jones University, majoring in Library Science and English.  When she graduated in 1972, she taught two years at North Florida Christian School in Tallahassee, then moved to Maryland for two more years of teaching in Christian schools there. She served as school librarian and taught English, Literature, and French. Deciding on a change of careers, she moved back to Pensacola in 1976 and received her Horticulture Certification from Pensacola Junior College in 1978. She worked the next year for Dr. William Bennett and the Biology Department of PJC, where she met Dr. Wayne Wooten; they began dating on Valentine's Day, 1980.

Wayne and Merry were married by Rev. Frank Beall at Trinity Presbyterian Church on June 7, 1980. Their son, Michael, was born on June 9, 1981 (nice anniversary present!), and daughter, Katie, on March 6, 1987; both survive her, as does her husband.

Merry loved nature, all aspects of it. She and Wayne were charter members of the Florida Paleontological Society, and worked fossil sites near Wayne's home in Walton County for the Florida State Museum in the 1980's. She was also a charter member of Carl Sagan's Planetary Society, having met him at the Saturn encounter of Voyager I in November 1980 at Jet Propulsion Lab. She loved meteorites, and accumulated bits of the Moon, Mars, Vesta, and many diverse asteroids in her studies. She shared them with school and planetarium presentations.

As an amateur astronomer, she served two terms as the President of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers' Association, promoting building homebuilt telescopes from surplus optics (she was famed as the originator of Copier Lens telescope, made in the thousands from her plans in the 1980's). She edited the regional newsletter of the South East Region of the Astronomical League, New Horizons, and coordinated the 1984 annular solar eclipse observations from Louisiana through Virginia. Her photo of the eclipse was on the cover of the Reflector, the Astronomical League's quarterly, in June 1984, as well as her report on the beautiful event as observed by the EAAA from Camden, Alabama on May 30, 1984.

Wayne, Merry, and son Michael were the Comet Observers for the Princess Lines "Love Boat" in April 1986 in the Caribbean and came back with many photos and memories of sharing the comet with hundreds of passengers and the public on the islands, particularly Barbados. With her organizational and promotional skills so evident, the Astronomical League elected her its Executive Secretary in 1986, just after the passage of Comet Halley.

In her two terms as Executive Secretary of the largest astronomical organization in the world, she with great hard work brought it into the computer age, from 14,000 3x5 index cards to a computerized data base for records and mailing labels. Reaching out to family friends Cliff and Jackie Holmes, she helped unite the Western Amateur Astronomers with the rest of the national Astronomical League. She also opened the AL and its clubs up to more family and youth centered outreach, at meetings, conventions, and observing gazes.  With Jack Horkheimer, she promoted an annual Youth Awards competition, to promote research in STEM sciences.  Her son Michael would place seventh in this competition with his observations of fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hitting Jupiter with huge impacts in July 1994; she also won science teacher of the year at the science fair for her direction of Michael's observations and presentations. The League honored her with its Wright Service Award in 1991, the only Executive Secretary so honored to date.

In raising her children, Merry home schooled them, but also got them involved in Scouting. Michael would become an Eagle Scout with Silver Palms, the highest award in scouting.  Both also loved computers and started working with them back in Commodore 64 days.  Both now work in software development.

Merry and Wayne were involved in leadership of Cub Scout Pack 32 at Scenic Heights, then Boy Scout Troop 431 at Trinity Presbyterian, and finally Troop 608 at Sacred Heart Cathedral. She was also a district commissioner for Boy Scouts for over a decade and won a service award from the district.

In 1994 Merry and Wayne organized a Space Camporee for all Boy Scouts of Northwest Florida at the Navy's Blue Angel recreational area. With help from members of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers, they led the scouts in launching rockets, observing the sun, moon, constellations, and planets over the three-day weekend, with many scouts achieving both Astronomy and Space Merit Badges from their work.

She and Wayne worked in PJC's E.G. Owens Planetarium, producing shows and presenting them free to the public on Thursday evenings. Her Bob Jones studies came in handy for "The Heavens Declare", a look at astronomy in the Bible. Her geological background and experience with NASA were used in the oil paintings for her "When Worlds Erupt", some of which were later used by NASA and Jet Propulsion Lab. She also led sky observing of the moon and planets after the shows and assisted with the kids in our Sky Interpretation sessions for the National Park Service at Fort Pickens from 1980-2017. Especially memorable was the Great Leonid Meteor Storm of November 17, 2002, as seen and photographed by her at Battery Langdon. She loved watching satellites pass, and her photo of the Hubble Space Telescope newly set free in orbit was published by Astronomy magazine. Her other photos of Comets IRAS-Ariki-Alcock, Halley, Hyakutake, and Hale Bopp are a historical record of the best such encounters of our lives. As women joined the crews of the International Space Station, she would go out, photograph the pass, and wave to them by name as they passed over Pensacola.

Merry's dedication to service showed in her many years of work at Trinity Presbyterian with the SERRV project, importing projects from all over the Third World to help the craftsmen who made them. In fact, Michael's Eagle Scout project was a special room for SERRV products at the church, with Merry's father making the cabinets for it. It raised thousands of dollars for this worthy cause under her leadership.

In her later years, Alzheimer's affected her memory, energy, and coordination, but she remained active and committed to service to science, the community, and the environment. Our yard is a woodsy nature preserve, and house home to many rescue cats who loved her dearly. She asked that in lieu of flowers, friends consider donations to three of her favorite charities, Chef Andre' World Central Kitchen, Doctors without Borders, and Astronomers without Borders.

It is with AWS that she devoted much of the energy of her last years to her design of STEM spyglasses for elementary school children of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria devastated their schools and science equipment.  With help from the EAAA, Earth Day staff, Pensacola Mess Hall, and other volunteers, her Draco Productions donated the parts and solar filters for building over 100 of the 20X spyglasses for Greetchen Diaz and Ciencia Puerto Rico. These were in part assembled by local kids at Earth Day and in Space Camp in 2019. The photos of the events are in our albums on Facebook at the Escambia Amateur Astronomers pages, along with many other astrophotos and activities of her contributions to science in West Florida and the whole world. Her Draco Productions sold telescope kits, completed telescopes, and solar filters for sun spotting and eclipse observing for 20 years, until Alzheimer's forced her to shut in down in early 2020.

She was a creative and restless soul up to the end. She liked to say she still had not decided what to be when she grew up even late in life, and her love of science and nature was infections to all who knew her. She will be deeply missed.

Now that COVID restrictions have relaxed, the Escambia Amateur Astronomers will host a memorial wake for its former president, Merry Edenton-Wooten, at 7:00pm on Thursday evening, May 20, 2021 at Pensacola State College, Room 1704. Friends are asked to come and share their memories of her life and accomplishments. Donations to her favorite charities, Chef Andre' World Central Kitchen, Doctors without Borders, and Astronomers without Borders, are also appreciated.