Denise Marie Hunt Lee

February 21, 1953 – April 2, 2016

It is with the most profound sadness we share that on April 2, 2016, the world lost a special soul. Denise Marie Hunt Lee, known to all as “DC,” passed quietly in her sleep at her home on Homedale Road in Caldwell, Idaho. DC will be missed by all who knew her. She was cherished as a wife, a sister, a mother, a grandmother, a friend.

DC was born in Moses Lake, Wash. to Joe and Florence “Fluffy” Hunt, the second of five children, and spent her early life in eastern Washington. As the oldest daughter she lovingly mothered from an early age. She graduated from Moses Lake High School in 1971 where she was active in music and theater. She was renowned for her lyric, bell-like soprano voice that soared with power to fill a church or blend exquisitely with her sister Beth Ann whenever they performed together.

DC joined the Bell Telephone company after high school where she worked for more than 30 years throughout the Pacific Northwest. Her career provided for her family and created a wealth of lifelong friends. She always found ways to give service wherever she lived – with special focus on those that needed help the most such as Special Olympics and volunteering at children’s hospitals. She was especially proud of “The Other Ducks” – her name for the Special Olympic team in Oregon that followed her around like devoted ducklings.

For DC, it never mattered what flavor you were as long as you were a good person. She could always find the good in you, and had a way of, best said in her own words; “Making you gooder.” Always quick to laugh, and just as quick to cry she never held back sharing her joy and lifting anyone from sadness. DC never traveled the world except for the parts of her carried in the hearts of her babies, but she didn’t need to: she loved the laid back life on Homedale Road. She was a storyteller at heart and she found her paradise in her friends and family near and far. Who needs Paris when you have been to Emmett, Idaho? Her Facebook Stories from Homedale Road shared her unique, delightfully warped, and tender insights into the good she encountered, and helpwed to make gooder each day. Denise is preceded in death by her mother Fluffy, her father Joe, her sister Beth Ann, her nephew Kyle, and other members of her extended family. She is survived by her loving husband (The Baldguy, her Hunka Hunka) Bobby Lee, and her extended family. As DC would say, she never birthed no babies, but she raised more than her share. She is mourned by her children and grandchildren, her nieces and nephews and those that knew her simply as “Ma.”

Details for celebrations of her life to be held in Caldwell, Idaho and Moses Lake, Wash. will be shared with her many friends and family via her Facebook account which will be kept active as a sweet archive of her love. In lieu of flowers the family asks in the spirit of DC to raise a glass, have a Twinkie, eat a pound of bacon and a loaf of toast, and make a joyful noise. DC has gone home.