Deanna Schloegel Castanedo

Deanna Schloegel Castanedo, age 83, passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by her beloved daughters, on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 2025, in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

Deanna was born at Mercy Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana, on April 17, 1941, and received the Sacrament of Baptism at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church. She was the only child of Clair George Schloegel and Ida Smith Schloegel. She grew up in New Orleans with a large extended family and early on excelled in music, becoming one of the youngest featured vocalists with the “Idol of the Air Lanes,” Jan Garber and His Orchestra. She and her mother traveled across the country with the band on tour during high school, receiving tutoring to graduate on time from St. Joseph Academy in 1959. When she was in New Orleans, she could often be found performing in the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel, where she met many popular national performers of the 1950s.

She then attended Newcomb College at Tulane University where she was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority and a vocalist with Tulane’s Glee Club, going on two USO Tours in post-war Europe. She earned her degree in Fine Arts in Music in 1964 and shortly thereafter began her career in education, which would become her lifelong passion.

She began her first teaching post at St. Raphael the Archangel in Gentilly. While there, she and a Sister composed a song entitled “Christmas Chimes” which her family continues to sing at Christmas to this day.

After marriage, she moved in 1969 to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to raise her children. There she pursued higher education at the University of Southern Mississippi, earning Master of Arts and Specialist degrees in Educational Administration.

As a brilliant and passionate educator, she touched many lives with her ability to make learning enjoyable and relevant to her students. Over her forty-five-year career, she taught thousands of students at a wide variety of schools such as St. James Major Catholic Elementary, St. Paul’s Catholic School, Jeff Davis Elementary, Long Beach Junior High, Pass Christian Elementary, Gaston Point and Central Elementary Schools, Bay High School, Coast Episcopal School, and her beloved Bay Catholic Elementary School where she was Principal until her health declined. She later returned to teaching and retired from Lizana Elementary School at the age of 71.

Deanna, who was the daughter of industrious and hard-working German immigrants, was the first in the family to graduate from high school much less attend college, and she believed that education, strong work ethic, and the development of one’s creativity were the keys to transforming any circumstances. She instilled these values in her students, children, and grandchildren. Above all, her style of pedagogy allowed her to meet each person where they were and, using a strengths-based approach, she was able to shine a light on each person’s gifts, believing that each and every person had the capacity to develop their God-given talents through dedication and discipline in a supportive environment. Her passion for living and expanding horizons was infectious. She traveled extensively across the United States, through Europe, Central America and Panama, Egypt, and Japan and was thus able to bring the history and cultures of distant lands alive for her students in the classroom.

Deanna was a parishioner of Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis where she began worshipping after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the former St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Pass Christian. Throughout her life in New Orleans and Pass Christian she contributed to the music ministries at her parishes and firmly believed that to sing is to pray twice.

She is preceded in death by her husband, Col. Wesley J. Castanedo, Jr. (USAF) and her parents, Clair and Ida Schloegel.

She is survived by her daughters, Dena Elizabeth Wittmann and Dayna Clare Clark (Jeff) and three grandchildren, F. Philip Wittmann V, Eva Clair Reeves Wittmann, and Charlie Wade Clark. She loved her children and grandchildren fiercely and delighted in watching Philip play the piano, Eva dance, and Charlie play the drums. An accomplished musician and dancer herself, her gifts and dedication to excellence live on through her beautiful grandchildren.

The family would like to thank Dr. Bassam Baroudi and his team for 23 years of excellent care and interventions as well as St. Joseph Hospice for providing compassionate end-of-life care.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Tuesday, March 25, 2025, at Our Lady of the Gulf Catholic Church in Bay St. Louis at 12 noon, with visitation from 11am to noon. A private family burial at Live Oak Cemetery in Pass Christian will follow the Mass.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Mississippi Public Broadcasting as Deanna was an avid supporter of public television with its broad and free access to excellent programming celebrating the arts, education, and travel.

Edmond Fahey Funeral Home is honored to serve the family of Deanna Schloegel Castanedo.