Cheryl Marie (Garlitz) Kautz was born on July 14, 1961, in Fruita, Colorado to Walter and Gladys (Egger) Garlitz. She was the seventh of seven children. She passed away peacefully at home on September 27, 2021 after battling cancer.
Cheryl spent her early years on the family farm outside of Loma, Colorado. The family later moved to Fruita where Cheryl attended Fruita Monument High School and graduated as Valedictorian in 1979 with a 4.0 GPA. She met the love of her life, Jonnie Kautz, while they were attending CSU in Fort Collins. They married on December 27th 1981.
In 1992, Cheryl graduated from Metropolitan State College of Denver with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics.
She worked in financial and retail businesses performing computer operations and data processing from 1982 to 1997. She “retired” in 1997 to stay at home caring for her two sons Adam and Sean. In 2016 she returned to worked at the Pikes Peak Library District as a shelver.
Cheryl found many was to give back to her community including being a volunteer preschool teacher while living in Georgia and serving as Advancement Chair for the Colorado Springs Cub Scout pack 456 . She joined the Woman’s Club of Colorado Springs in 2015 participating in many of their service projects. She became their webmaster in 2016 and continued in that role until her passing.
Vacationing with her family, and traveling the world with her three sisters were two of Cheryl’s loves. Whether she was whale watching in Baja, Mexico; ziplining in Costa Rica; river cruising in Holland and Germany; experiencing the Canadian Rockies via helicopter; off roading along the Oregon Coast; rappelling into cenotes in Cozumel, Mexico; flying over the Nazca Lines in Peru; swimming beneath the Temple of Poseidon in Greece; trekking to various waterfalls in Iceland; watching the solar total eclipse in Oregon; or swimming with sharks in the Galapagos Islands, Cheryl’s sense of adventure and love of nature invigorated everyone around her.
Cheryl is survived by her husband Jonnie, her two sons, Adam of Colorado Springs, Sean (Haley Skipper) of Colorado Springs, and her six siblings Bert Garlitz (Jan Detwiler) of Grand Junction, Joe (Irene) Garlitz of Elgin, OR, Linda (Ron) Miller of Elgin, OR, Gaylene Garlitz of Boulder, CO, Kirby (Katie) Garlitz of Klamath Falls, OR, Jacqueline Kemp of Phoenix, AZ.
