Lakeland High School is mourning a much-loved guidance counselor.

Keisha Sawyer Roberts, 39, died Tuesday at Sentara Obici Hospital, with husband Randy Roberts by her bedside.

They would have celebrated their 16th wedding anniversary next month.

“She took sick,” Randy Roberts said. “We were hoping things would turn around, but they didn’t.”

Keisha Roberts had made an appointment to see the doctor on Monday, her husband said. When her condition worsened, an ambulance was called and she was transported to the emergency room.

Randy Roberts commended staff in Obici’s intensive-care unit “because they did everything in their power to make my wife’s condition turn around.”

Thanks to the care she received, Keisha Roberts “stayed with us another whole day,” he added.
Roberts was a teacher’s assistant at Mack Benn Jr. Elementary School between 2005 and 2010. Her career as a guidance counselor began at Mount Zion Elementary in 2010-2011, the school’s final year of operation, before she went to Lakeland to counsel students in grades nine through 11.

“I would say she could be described as a beacon of hope and ray of sunshine in the lives of her students,” said Douglas Wagoner, Lakeland’s principal.

“The students absolutely loved her. She had a beautiful, caring smile, and always had words of encouragement and wisdom for everybody.”

Wagoner said the school community would miss “the joy and enthusiasm she brought to life.”

Counselors were available in the library for staff and students on Thursday.

In a statement, retired principal Fran Barnes, who worked with her at Mount Zion Elementary, said Roberts was a dedicated educator who could turn her hand to many different things.

“She was a very caring person whose cheery personality made her well-liked by the students and staff,” Barnes said.

“She was in her first year as a counselor, but she jumped right in and did a great job on the many responsibilities given to her — testing coordinator, mentor coordinator, leadership team member, and many other duties. She did not hesitate to offer to help with school projects.”

“My wife, she loved kids,” Randy Roberts said. “She had an imaginary student named Michael that she used to teach at her grandparents’ house when she was young. She was meant to go into education at some capacity.”

Childhood sweethearts, Keisha and Randy Roberts began dating when she was 12 and he was 13. And from that point on, they were only apart five or six years.

“We started dating again and we ended up getting married,” Randy Roberts said.

Roberts graduated from Southampton High School in 1994. She returned there to teach after graduating from Virginia State University with her bachelor’s in 1998, her husband said, before graduating from Cambridge College with a Master of Education in 2007.

Randy Roberts said he asked other family members to leave the room when his wife was close to death.

“Me and my wife were very private people at times,” he said. “We spent a lot of time together — that’s what really hurts the most and what I’m really going to have to struggle with down the road.

“I was with her when she took her very last breath, and it was as peaceful as peaceful could be.”

Roberts leaves behind a son, Derrick D. Roberts; two grandchildren, TaLaysha, 8, and Zamir, 5; a brother, Jeffrey Sawyer of Franklin; and mother-in-law, Mildred Roberts, along with many other family and friends.

A Portsmouth native, Roberts was the daughter of Abdullah Mahdee of Portsmouth and Geraldine Sawyer of Franklin.

Before the burial at Carver Memorial Cemetery, a funeral service is scheduled for noon Monday at New First Baptist Church, where Roberts performed in the combined choir and was church secretary.

She was also a member of the Franklin/Tri-County Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.