Laurissa Mae Hyatt

Laurissa Hyatt, 86, of Lake Charles, Louisiana passed away Saturday February 13, 2016 after a brief illness. She was born on June 20, 1929 in Port Arthur, Texas and moved with her family as a young child to Lake Charles where she lived her entire life.

Rissi, as her friends knew her, was a lover of music. She loved to sing and had a beautiful and distinctive voice. Growing up, she sang with her sisters and brother as her mother played piano and she knew all the verses to literally hundreds of hymns and popular songs and could sing most of them throughout her life. She studied music at McNeese State University, sang in church choir, listened to music throughout the day, and taught her children to love music.

Another of her passions was foreign mission work. Although she was not physically able to go herself, it was she who was the original force behind what came to be the Trinity Baptist Church Glasses Ministry. She recruited workers, including her husband daughter and others, to make short term mission trips to give glasses in third world countries and in poor areas of developing countries. Through this on-going ministry over 30,000 people have received better sight and a great many received Christ in their lives.

She was a Registered Nurse having received her training at Baptist Hospital in New Orleans and worked in polio treatment facilities in New Mexico and North Dakota. Later she served as Infirmary Nurse at McNeese and as a Medical Certification Specialist for the State of Louisiana, Department of Hospitals.

In her later years she was part of a women’s prayer group at church. It is a small group that meets to pray for the church and for individuals in need. The ladies developed a deep love for each other and her weekly meetings with them were especially meaningful to her.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Joseph Robert and Merle Moffett Watts; siblings, Merle Rivette, Jo Marian “Joty” Williams and Robert Watts.

Those left to cherish her memory are her husband, Richard “Dick” Hyatt of Lake Charles; daughter, Melanie Hyatt of Lake Charles; sons, Stephen Hyatt and wife Suzan of Memphis, Tennessee and Timothy Hyatt and wife Lisa of High Point, North Carolina; brother, Dudley and wife Elizabeth of Hurst, Texas; sister, Marylee and husband Ben Yount of Federal Way, Washington, and nine grandchildren.

A Celebration of Life service will be at 2:00pm Saturday, February 20, 2016 at Johnson Funeral Home in Lake Charles. Rev. Steve James of Trinity Baptist Church will officiate. Services will be followed by a reception in the South Hall (Nelson Road entrance) at the church.

In lieu of flowers, friends may make donations to Trinity Baptist Church Glasses Ministry, 1800 Country Club Road, Lake Charles, LA 70605.