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Cedar Cove Feline Sanctuary and Education Center has lost its matriarch. And Louisburg has lost one of its most beloved citizens.
 Shelly Rae Tooley, 49, died Nov. 28 at Overland Park Regional Medical Center.
Her death has dealt a significant blow to the staff at Cedar Cove, where she is considered a co-founder by William Pottorff, the man who Tooley helped execute his vision for a big cat sanctuary on Kansas Highway 68 east of Louisburg.
"Shelly was with me for 19 years, long before the new park opened,” Pottorff said. “I tried to talk her out of it at first, because this job isn’t for everyone, and it doesn’t make any money. But she didn’t care about the money, and she took to the work right off. She was a natural with the cats.
“She helped me build the new park, she’s really the co-founder. She was committed to the park 100 percent.”
Metal pipe for the cages and exercise enclosures covers more than 3.5 acres of the 11.6-acre Cedar Cove park, and Pottorff and Tooley cut every pipe. One afternoon, they dug 179 post holes under a blazing sun.
“Shelly was one of the most devoted, interesting and hard-driven human beings I’ve ever met,” Pottorff said. “Shelly could do anything, weld, fix anything mechanical... She had a full-time job and still spent about 45 to 50 hours every week taking care of the cats. The girl didn’t get much sleep.”
Cedar Cove opened in 2000. B.J. Auch, the first volunteer at Cedar Cove with Pottorff and Tooley, said Tooley taught her the ropes.
“I started in May 2002, and Shelly taught me how to do the chores and to be safe,” said Auch, who is now vice president of the Cedar Cove board. “She has trained most of the staff at the park.”
Cedar Cove President Larry Fries said he was always impressed with Tooley’s work ethic.
“She worked the third shift at the J.C. Distribution Center in Lenexa, and people on the third shift don’t tend to get a lot of sleep,” Fries said. “But Shelly was always here every morning, rain or shine, to do the chores. She wouldn’t go home to get some rest until everything was in order. Shelly was just a great person. We are all better for having known her.”
Friends said besides her family, preservation of Siberian tigers and other big cats was Tooley’s passion. But her enthusiasm for volunteer work didn’t stop there.
She could often be seen riding her Harley-Davidson motorcycle to help at events such as Halloween on Broadway, Louisburg’s National Night Out and the Louisburg Lions Club car show.
Neil Spector, past organizer of the Lions Club car show for many years, said Tooley was always the first volunteer to arrive and the last one to leave.
“She would always stand at the top of the hill (on Broadway Street) with her walkie-talkie and tell the cars where to line up for the show,” Spector said. “She wasn’t a member of the Lions Club, she just wanted to help out.”
Spector said Tooley loved bringing food for Halloween on Broadway and helping with the barbecue contest at Louisburg Night Out.
“She was the one behind the scenes who didn’t get as much recognition as she deserved,” Spector said. “She didn’t work for me (at Neil Spector Motors), but she would volunteer to go get our mail. She probably had half a dozen mailbox keys that she picked up mail for other people, too.”
Spector said Tooley was one of the hardest working people he knew, and he was saddened by her death.
“I’m sure she had more work she wanted to do,” he said.
Tooley grew up in Louisburg and graduated from Louisburg High School in 1977. She married James Kenneth Tooley in the summer of 1977. They have one son, Matthew.
Louisburg Fire Chief Paul Richards remembers when Tooley’s husband, Ken, served on the fire department, she would help firefighters put out grass fires.
“And when there was a structure fire, Shelly was always there to help guys put gear on or help them take off their heavy air packs and coats or get them a drink,” Richards said. “She was always there to take care of them.”
She worked many years with the Louisburg Area Recreation Association as a softball and baseball coach and as a member of the LARA board. She loved LHS Wildcat football games.
Auch said Tooley was tough-minded and taught her how to be tough.
“Shelly was literally the strongest woman I knew, physically and mentally,” Auch said. “Sometimes, after a deer is hit, people will bring them here for us to feed to the tigers. We usually have to gut the deer and cut them up. I remember when I started I couldn’t even look at a dead deer, and Shelly taught me how to gut a deer ... being a volunteer here is more than some people bargain for, it’s not just a hobby. I think Shelly was surprised I stayed on. She made me tougher.”
Auch said Cedar Cove has persevered through some hardships, and Tooley was there every step of the way.
“We are continuing her work, but it’s going to be very difficult without her,” Auch said. “Shelly was the matriarch of Cedar Cove, and now we don’t have one.”
Pottorff, who semi-retired two years ago, plans to become more active in the park because he said that’s what his longtime friend would have wanted. He’s working on a memorial at the park in Tooley’s honor that will recognize her as co-founder.
“I knew Shelly from the time she was a little kid,” Pottorff said. “I played hardball with her brothers. Her family was really like a second family to me.
“We had sort of a brother-sister relationship, and we fought like brothers and sisters sometimes,” he chuckled. “I will miss her presence, her giggle, her smile. She will not be beside me in the physical sense, but I will carry her spirit with me every day for the rest of my life.”
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