A memorial service for Janice Yarbrough Lawson, 64, of Wedowee, Ala., was held on Monday, Jan. 31, at Smoke Rise Baptist Church in Stone Mountain, Ga.

The funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, at First Baptist Church in Bainbridge, Ga., followed by the interment in Oak City Cemetery. The family will receive friends immediately following the service at the church.

An additional memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 4, at First United Methodist Church in Wedowee. The family will receive friends immediately following the service at the church.

Mrs. Lawson was born June 29, 1946, in LaGrange, Ga., and died Friday, Jan. 28, 2011, at Hospice Atlanta following a courageous battle with metastatic breast cancer.

Mrs. Lawson was born June 29, 1946, in LaGrange, the oldest daughter of Ocie Yarbrough and Ruth Tennant Yarbrough, and moved to Bainbridge when she was 14. She was a graduate of Bainbridge High School, Class of 1964, and received her bachelor’s and master’s degree in education with a reading specialist and junior high school emphasis.

She married to Emmett Lawson Jr. on July 11, 1971, and taught school for 34 years, predominately as an eighth-grade language arts teacher. Always focused on others, she was an active volunteer in her church, workplace and community.

She is survived by her husband, Emmett M. Lawson Jr. of Wedowee; her daughter, Maribeth Schaefer and her husband, Jason, of Atlanta; her son, Martin Lawson and his wife, Dani, of Atlanta; her sister, Beth Wilson and her husband, Kinney, of Loganville, Ga.; her nephew, John Crawford and his wife, Paige, of Moultrie, Ga.; her niece, Cathy McIntosh and her husband, Billy, and their daughter, Cara McIntosh, of Moultrie.

Memorials may be made to Janice Y. Lawson Scholarship Fund, Gwinnett County Public Schools Foundation, 437 Old Peachtree Road, NW, Suwanee, GA 30024 or on the web at www.gcps-foundation.org; Hospice Atlanta, 1244 Park Vista Drive, Atlanta, GA 30319; East Alabama Arts Society, P.O. Box 128, Wedowee, AL 36278; or the Friendship House, P.O. Box 513, Bainbridge, GA 39818.

Ivey Funeral Home is in charge of the arrangements.