"She inspired students to venture beyond their backyard to the bigger world, and opportunities they hadn't yet imagined." Cecilie Washburn, former student.

Nanette was born October 1, 1956 to Robert and Willena Philibert in Springfield, MO. She has an older brother Robert Philibert, older sister Suzanne Stringer, a nephew Ben Stringer, niece Cally Fronabarger, and nephew Alex Philibert. She attended grade school and junior high at Greenwood Laboratory School and transferred to Parkview for high school where she graduated in 1974. She was an avid reader...a bookworm, and it was fitting that her first job was at the Heritage bookstore on Glenstone. Nan wrote, "I often go on binges and read everything that one author wrote." She first attended University of Missouri in Columbia where, as she wrote, "I was technically a Latin major but really specialized in hanging out at the Kappa Sig house learning about life." When she came home that summer after her first year, and her parents saw her grades, she was encouraged to transfer to Missouri State University, then SMSU, in Springfield. After 140 credit hours, and not graduating, she stopped trying. She continued working at the bookstore, and for a time at a savings & loan. After a tumultuous relationship with a "crazy boyfriend" at the age of 26 she got up one morning, went to the Army recruiter, signed up and left town. She referred to that as her "private Benjamin moment." That was October 1982.

The Army quickly recognized she was no ordinary recruit. During the first half of her ten years of service she was an Arabic linguist stationed with the 101st Airborne Division. She studied two years in Monterey, CA---went to Texas for some classified training---went to Massachusetts for more training and then spent two years in Ft. Campbell, KY.

Nan wrote, "In 1986 the Army was looking for 3 Arabic linguists to go back to school and study Hebrew. Until that time, the fact that the US trained people to eavesdrop on our Israeli friends was classified. But since the Israelis liked to conduct espionage operations against us---the US went public and ramped-up the program. I re-enlisted, went back to Monterey, CA for a year or so, went back to Texas and moved to Greece in 1988." She was stationed in Athens Greece at the Army Intelligence School.

Nan has always been a dog lover. She always had dogs. Even when she was stationed in Athens, Greece she had a dog. Later she adopted retired greyhounds. While listing all the names and breeds would be long and tedious, her last two dogs were Jake and Grace. Jake was a frisbee catching Border Collie, and Grace was a deserted street dog, part beagle, and no telling what else, that wandered up to her donut shop one day. She said, "I really like dogs more than people ." When watching movies, if it appeared that a dog was going to get hurt, she would not watch.

In 1989 Nan married a fellow serviceman eleven years younger than her. This didn't last long. She met and married her second husband, Phil Burleson, in 1990. Nan and Phil remained married until Phil was killed in a car accident in early 2004. Nan remained involved with her step daughters, Vicki and Stephanie, especially during their college endeavors at MSSU.

In 1991 Nan graduated from the University of New York at Albany with a Comparative Studies degree in Semitic Languages. She left the army because of a neck problem, which she termed "structural issues". Nan and Phil moved to Plano Texas where she started working on her Masters degree in 1993 at Texas Woman's University. She graduated in 1995. While working on her masters she worked for a defense contractor developing training materials on signal collection systems for the Army and Marine Corp. She went on to work for Ericsson as a technical writer, and then to Octel as training manager for their voice messaging systems. She started working on her PhD in 1995 at the University of North Texas in Denton.

In 1996 Lucent Technologies acquired Octel, the company Nan had been working for, and she was promoted to HR Manager. Lucent spun-off part of the company into Avaya and Nan became HR Director for the Midwest. While that sounds like a great corporate gig, Avaya was going through a "restructuring" and Nan's job devolved into firing lots of people. She hated it.

Phil was a cellular engineer for a consulting company which didn't require that he live in Plano. Nan wrote a business case to Avaya on why it was financially advantageous to eliminate her position and give her an exit package, which they did.

In 2002, Nan and Phil moved from Plano, TX to Shell Knob, MO. Nan had finished her PhD coursework, but had not written her dissertation. Nan wrote, "my mom reminds me of that daily." Nan became an entrepreneur opening Daylight Donuts on the Plaza strip shopping center in Shell Knob, which involved getting up at 3am to go make donuts for the shop and for delivery to convenience stores in the Table Rock area. Phil was making one of those deliveries in January of 2004, early in the morning, in the fog on the curvy, hilly highway 86 when he missed a turn and ran off the road and was killed. This tragedy occurred when they had a young business, just a couple years old, a little house in the middle of major rehab, and bam, one day everything changed. Nan had to regroup, and reassess. Ultimately, she decided to close the donut shop, go back to school and finish her PhD.

In July of 2004, Nan decided to get out and reconnect by attending a Springfield-wide high school cluster reunion for the classes of about 1972 through 1975 at a venue in south Springfield. During that party she was reintroduced to a fellow she had known three decades prior in her junior high years. Paul left that party to reunite with buddies at an annual golf outing, and to exclaim "I think I'm in love." Paul was living in Overland Park, KS at the time. Emails were exchanged, much of which formed the basis of this story where Nan wrote about what she had done during those thirty years after junior high.

Nan moved back to Denton to finish her PhD at UNT. The long-distance relationship flourished with email exchanges, phone calls, and all too infrequent rendezvous. Nan finished her PhD, and secured a faculty position in the School of Business at Missouri Southern State University (MSSU) in Joplin. Over time, Nan advanced to department head where she remained until her ALS diagnosis in October 2015.

Dr. Jeff Allen, who headed up Nan's PhD program at UNT, commented that Nan was quite different than the other students. She brought a unique perspective with her military and human resources experience. Jeff also said "she could irritate the hell out of some faculty members." She almost got kicked out of the program because of the lag time between finishing her coursework and completing her dissertation, but with Jeff's help and encouragement she got back on track in 2004.

Jeff had an annual consulting gig with the Ironworkers of America providing training for the administrative staff and leadership team. He needed another professor to help with some of the classes. As Jeff put it, "I asked myself, who do we have that can handle the Ironworkers?" He concluded, of course, that Nan could easily handle a tough male crowd, and brought Nan on board for a decade of annual conferences in San Diego initially that later moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Nan has been a mentor to many, including fellow doctoral candidates at UNT. Dr. Kim Nimon was one of those. Kim said Nan was a great editor that helped her with her dissertation and other papers, and admonished her to "never use another semicolon again." Kim and Nan became a great research and writing team combining Nan's mastery of the written word, and Kim's mastery of math and statistics. Kim and Nan worked together with Jeff for several years on Ironworkers training, and Kim took Nan to Peru to introduce her to Kim's charity program and to tour Machu Picchu.

At Missouri Southern Nan was a mentor to other professors including her protege and friend Megan Douglas. She had achieved numerous certifications from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) including Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), and Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR). She created the HR emphasis program and curriculum at MSSU. In Megan's words, "Nan, also known as Dr. P, was a tireless advocate of student success, was  passionate about providing travel abroad opportunities by hosting students on trips all over Europe. She was a respected and admired colleague who could always be counted on to successfully tackle the most challenging departmental and university goals." Dr. P was a popular and sought after advisor for many students. She went out of her way to help students that were, in some way, underrepresented. This included ethnic minorities, females in the school of business, gay students, poor students, academically challenged athletes...they flocked to her, she belived in them, and she took them under her wing, protected them, and worked tirelessly to set them on the path to success.

Nan had a love for learning, was pursuing an art degree, and would have gotten one if her pursuit had not been cut short by ALS.

Nan owned a hundred acres just north of Shell Knob in the wilds of the Ozark hills adjacent to the Mark Twain National Forest. She built a home on a hilltop and allowed Paul to visit, build trails, hike, shoot guns, and play with chainsaws and other implements.

On many Sunday evenings after the weekend crowds had left the lake, Nan and Paul took their boat to their special cove, threw out the anchor, sipped white wine, swam, engaged in spirited repartee about anything and everything, and relished the intimacy of each other's company. The cove opened to a long stretch of the lake to the west and the couple enjoyed many a magical sunset across the glistening water while boating in slow motion back to the marina.

Most autumn evenings Nan and Paul walked down a trail from the house for about 200 yards to a small hill top clearing overlooking a broad expanse of the Mark Twain National forest. There was a bench and a table for quiet contemplation and/or spirited conversation.

Nanette's wishes were to have more of a party than a service. The celebration of Nan's life will be held at the Affinity Riverside Estate , 381 Guin Rd, Nixa, MO 65714 from 4:30 to 7:30pm on Monday, May 27, 2019. A brief celebration reading will begin at 5:30pm. Casual dress with hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. Bring Nan stories to share with friends and family.