Cleo West Andrus Bearden, long time resident of Duke, celebrated her 106th birthday with family and friends on Thursday July 27.

Duke has joined in celebrating with Cleo in the past giving her a parade by her house. Born in 1917 in the community of Prairie Hill, that is just outside of Duke, her and her husband raised a family of five daughters and one son by farming around the Duke area. She later lived in Dallas for a while where she worked at Texas Instruments during the time that the calculator was invented.

Cleo has experienced many historical events having been born during WW I at which time the world was also going through the Spanish Flu that killed 52 million people worldwide. She’s lived through the Great Depression, WW II, Korean War, Vietnam, and she has always loved this country.

When she returned to Duke, she started teaching Sunday School for Kindergarten through fifth-grade. She taught for many years and all her little students called her Ms. Cleo. She stopped teaching so she could start attending Sunday School with others her age, but there were only younger people in their 70’s and 80’s. Cleo has been to Israel twice and rode camels to the Pyramids in Egypt. Not only is she the proud mother of six kids, but also the Grandmother of 14 and Great Grandmother of 17. She’s up on the latest technologies, she’s active on Facebook and FaceTiming with family. She also enjoys working crossword puzzles and one of her favorite foods is pizza.