Randi (Decater) Beardsley, of Newtown and Auburn, California, passed this life peacefully on Saturday, September 25, just one day before her seventieth birthday, after a long battle with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Randi Ellen Decater was born in Lying-In Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 26, 1951, to Harriet and Forrest Decater. She first attended school in Claymont, Delaware, where she demonstrated promise as an award-winning swimmer destined for the Olympics. The Decaters moved to Newtown just as Randi entered junior high school. Finding there was no swimming pool in the middle school and no extracurricular competitive swimming program in Connecticut at that time, Randi instead focused on her studies, and enjoyed great popularity among her new classmates.

In 1965, her freshman year of high school, Randi joined the high school chorus under the direction of Joseph P. Grasso. With her poise and stage presence, Mr Grasso recognized that Randi was the natural choice as the first drum major for the Newtown High School Marching Band.

The Newtown Bee reported on this exciting event on November 4, 1966: “The Newtown High School band took the field last Saturday at the home football game dressed in its new uniforms, part of which had only arrived in town the night before. The band marched from the high school [Sugar Street] to Taylor Field [Hawley School, Church Hill Road], played during the game, and also performed at half time. The fifty members were led by Randi Decater dressed in her Indian garb, plus a color guard and marching unit. A total of 77 students took part in the entertainment.”

Newtown schools’ emblem at that time was the proud Pomperaug Indian. Randi wore a drum major uniform of white fringed leather, hand-beaded in the school colors of blue and gold, with a floor-length feathered headdress, custom-made by Mrs Gertrude Ballard of Newtown. Directing the band with a silver baton, Randi’s striking beauty and stature drew attention wherever the band performed. Whether leading the band through formations on the football field in a halftime show, or marching up Main Street in Newtown’s Annual Labor Day Parade, her presence was noted by all.

Upon graduating Newtown High School in 1969, Randi attended the University of Connecticut and earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. For several years, she was a visiting nurse for the City of Hartford VNA, comforting and caring for her in-home clients. Later, she attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Hartford and earned a Masters Degree in Business and then transitioned to hospital administration, writing computer code for accounting programs.

Randi met and married Jonathan Beardsley of Hartford, Connecticut, and they had two beloved children, Samantha and Thomas.

She is predeceased by her father, ­­­­Forrest “Cy” Decater, and stepfather, Col Roy Lounsbury. She leaves behind her loving mother, Harriet Decater Lounsbury of Williamsburg, Virginia. Randi also leaves behind her brother, Todd Decater, and his wife, Elizabeth, of Southbury. She is survived by her husband, Jonathan; their daughter, Samantha Bear, and husband, Chaz, of San Francisco; and her son, Thomas, currently a Doctoral Candidate in Mathematics at USC Irvine.