BOWLING GREEN — Rebecca “Becky” L. Hansen, a former Bowling Green city council member and an amateur actress who also was at different times a teacher, tax preparer, and travel agent, died Aug. 23 in Wood County Hospital. She was 80.

She died of complications from a lung condition and a broken hip suffered in a fall, her husband of 59 years, Vern Hansen, said.

Mrs. Hansen, a Republican, held the city's third ward council seat for two two-year terms from 1994 through 1997.

High points of her tenure included helping get the levy on the ballot to fund the building of Bowling Green’s Fire Station 2.

“We needed a fire station west of the railroad tracks and she spearheaded the effort,” Mr. Hansen said. “She was proud of accomplishing that and it was somewhat of a challenge.”

In 1997, Mrs. Hansen decided not to run again in order to be able to travel with her husband, an airline pilot and a retired Air Force colonel. Having been to all 50 states together, they wanted to spend more time traveling overseas to “the parts of the world we had not seen yet,” Mr. Hansen said.

Over the years, Mrs. Hansen also performed in campus and community theater productions in Bowling Green, including those by Black Swamp Players, a community theater where she also was a past treasurer.

“She was so much fun to work with,” Kent McClary, a veteran performer with the Black Swamp Players, said. “She was usually cast as an over-the-top kind of character, kind of like a spinster, a wealthy socialite. And she played it to the hilt. She was great.”

Mrs. Hansen’s favorite role was Aunt Eller in the musical Oklahoma!, Mr. Hansen said.

She had played that role in two productions that were about 30 years apart. She played in an officer’s wives club’s dinner-theater production at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois in 1980 and with the Black Swamp Players in Bowling Green around 2010.

“When she was younger, they used stage makeup to paint wrinkles on her face and sprayed her hair gray in order to age her. Thirty years later, they didn’t have to do much of that,” her daughter, Libby Riggs, said.

As she followed her husband on his Air Force assignments, Mrs. Hansen was at different times a high-school teacher, a tax preparer, and a travel agent.

Over the years, they had lived at seven different states, “border to border and coast to coast,” and overseas — at the Lajes Field U.S. Air Force base in Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores Islands.

Mrs. Hansen also volunteered as a United States Air Force Museum tour guide, a Girl Scout leader, and as a recording secretary and treasurer at officers’ wives’ clubs. She also acted in “little theater” productions, and sang in choral groups and church choirs on Air Force bases or in nearby towns.

Born Oct. 25, 1941 in Bowling Green to Bernice and Dr. Dallas March, she graduated from Bowling Green High School in 1959 and then attended Bowling Green State University, graduating in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in education. While at BGSU, she played main roles in campus theater productions.

Also in 1963, she married Vernon C. Hansen.

Mrs. Hansen was a member of First United Methodist Church, Bowling Green, where she was treasurer of the United Methodist Women and performed in theater productions.

Her other memberships included Shakespeare Round Table, Bowling Green Women’s Club, BGSU Falcon Club, and Bowling Green Country Club, where she was a past president of the Golferettes.

In her free time, she enjoyed cheering for her four grandsons at their sports games. She also liked to play mahjong.

Mr. Hansen said she was very supportive of her grandsons and was proud that all four got the Arrow of Light, the highest award in Cub Scouting, three of them became Eagle Scouts; and one got the Boy Scouts of America’s Medal of Merit for a lifesaving action.

Along with her husband, surviving are her son, Chuck Hansen; daughter, Libby Riggs, and four grandchildren.

Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. Oct. 29 at First United Methodist Church, Bowling Green, where a Celebration of Life service will immediately follow at 11 a.m. A luncheon at the church is scheduled immediately following the service.

Arrangements are by Dunn Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the Black Swamp Players or the church.

First Published September 5, 2022, 4:00 a.m.