Kathleen Lynn Posio

BROWNSVILLE, TX. - Kathleen Lynn Posio, a loving sister, beloved aunt, and respected science teacher, passed away on Thursday, the 19th of September 2024, at 61 years of age after a year long battle with multiple medical problems. Kathy was devoted to her family, friends, former students, and “fur babies."

Born on May 24, 1963 in Dearborn, Michigan to Henry and Colleen Posio, Kathy was the third born daughter of four daughters who were collectively known as the Posio Sisters. Her favorite activities all centered around her family, especially her nieces and nephews, sisters and parents. It was her joy to attend graduations, birthdays, weddings, baptisms, births, concerts, games, family nights and game nights. She loved a good road trip, especially if she was driving, and family vacations were always an adventure with Kathy planning every detail from where to stay, shop and eat to what family member or friend to visit. Road trips across Texas were commonplace, but her favorite place was Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where her great-grandparents settled as immigrants from Finland in 1907, and where story-telling was a tradition and integrated into family history and genealogy. She continued her story-telling into her classrooms where life’s lessons and accidents fit in somehow with chemistry, physics, physical science, environmental science and biology. 

Kathy’s teaching career began as a six year old first grader, and her pupil was her little sister who would sit on the floor in front of the small chalkboard learning the lesson of the day. This teaching journey led her to a Bachelors of Education from Pan American University and a Texas Teaching Certification in Composite Science. She taught five years at Pace High School, three years at an alternative campus for teenage parents with McAllen ISD, and twenty-four years at Lopez High School. She had a two year hiatus in teaching when she worked through a grant with TSC and the Gorgas Science Foundation which conducted scientific research and birding trips to the cloud rainforest, Rancho del Cielo, in Tamaulipas, Mexico. This experience ignited a lifelong love for bird-watching as she kept a pair of binoculars and a field guide next to her favorite chair and identified the native and migrating birds that visited her backyard haven. Throughout her thirty-two years of teaching, Kathy dedicated her life to her students by creating a hands-on learning environment based on the scientific method and made learning about moles fun with her popular Bubble Gum Lab. When asked about her greatest accomplishment, she always responded by citing her former students’ accomplishments. 

She demonstrated the love of Jesus Christ and her love for others in tangible ways and opened her home to more than fifteen people during times of need or personal crisis from family members to former students. 

Preceding Kathy in death were her parents, Henry and Colleen Posio, and her great-nephew, Anthony Hinojosa. 

Kathy is survived by her sisters Kimberly Jones (Jon), Karen Fannin (Randy), and Kristine Molina (Hector); her nieces and nephews Stacy Lara (Robert), Maria Hinojosa (Tony), Nick Fannin (Amy), Henri Posio (Perti), Ron Fannin (Kaylee), Joy Seick (Joe), Jonathan Jones (Nery), Daniel Walters-Molina (Amber), Sophia Molina, Lorenzo Molina; fourteen great nieces and nephews; and her dearest friends Celeste Corwin, Becky Perales, Beth Libby, and Delia Jasso. 

Visiting Hour with the family will be held at the First Baptist Church, 1600 Boca Chica Boulevard, Brownsville, on Saturday, the 26th of October 2024 between nine and ten o’clock in the morning. The Memorial Service will commence at ten o'clock Saturday morning. 

In lieu of floral arrangements and customary remembrances, contributions in her memory may be directed to the Samaritan’s Purse, www.samaritanspurse.org, or to the Gorgas Science Foundation, www.sabalpalmsanctuary.org.

Memories of Kathleen may be shared at www.darlingmouser.com.

Personalized funeral arrangements directed by Steven R. Hieu Bailey and Staff have been entrusted to the care of Darling-Mouser Funeral Home at 945 Palm Boulevard in Brownsville, Texas 78520, (956) 546-7111.