Barbara Gay Jelgerhuis Langner

Barbara Langner, "Babs," passed away on Sunday, June 5th, 2022, at the age of 87 after a long, well-fought battle with metastatic colon cancer. She is survived by her husband, Mike Langner, and her daughter, Susan Langner. Babs and Mike were married for 52 wonderful years. They met purely by chance when they were cast as husband-and-wife in a community theater production of Edward Albee's "Everything In The Garden" at the then Old Town Studio. After a whirlwind courtship, Mike and Babs married after knowing each other for just four months. Fifty-two fairy-tale years of marriage followed, as the two fell more in love with each passing day.

Babs was born and raised in Huron, South Dakota. After attending Stevens College and then the University of Nebraska where she earned her MA in Spanish, she moved to New Mexico where she taught Spanish and then English at Albuquerque's Highland High School for many years where she became Chair of the English Department. With her great love of books and literature, she was a long-time volunteer and for a term president of the Friends of the Rio Rancho Library. It's successor, the Friends of Libraries and Literacy in Rio Rancho is the recipient of her large home library. Babs loved participating in the Food Pantry mission of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, Casa San Miguel, passing out bag after bag of groceries to Albuquerque residents, often bringing candy to sweeten everyone's day. She sang in the church's choir and spent some time as a member of the church's vestry.

In addition, she found time to volunteer at the Albuquerque Bio Park Zoo, and could frequently be found walking Homer, the porcupine, around the zoo grounds greeting attendees, or leading a llama around the zoo welcoming guests. In retirement, with her love of literature, Babs took up writing. She wrote and published several "cozy mysteries" centered around a high school teacher amateur detective that always found the killer before her policeman boyfriend did. Her mystery "The Detectives Who Loved Opera," centered around Opera Southwest and its years in the Kimo Theater, features the well-known Kimo Theater's ghost. She also penned "The Detectives Who Loved Shakespeare" which invokes the curse of MacBeth and also takes place in the Kimo Theater, "The Detectives Who Loved Beethoven" with echoes of the June Music Festival's long-running string quartet series (now known as Chamber Music Albuquerque), and with her love of all things chocolate, "The Chocolate Murder."

When not writing her next book, she found time to be a Sandoval County Master Gardner, bringing forth flowering life and beauty to barren land wherever she touched it. Friends and family referred to her back yard as "The Oasis," as it is so colorful and vibrant under her careful hand. A special thanks to Presbyterian Rust Medical Cancer Center for their wonderful, life-extending cancer treatments. In lieu of flowers please donate to Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church's Casa San Miguel Food Pantry to help feed residents of our community, or to Watermelon Mountain Ranch Animal Shelter, a no-kill animal shelter saving pets' lives.

A Funeral Service will be held on Monday, June 13, 2022, at 10:00 a.m., St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, 601 Montano Road NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107.